Today I have a photo essay for you. These are fantastic close-ups of honey bees – maybe too close for some people. All of these pictures are from the United States Geological Survey. As such, they are in the public domain.

The American government – in order to speed scientific discoveries and access to information – passed a law years ago that automatically places most information and photographs made during work hours by employees of the US government into an open and free depository.

You can use these pictures anytime, anywhere – at school presentations, in your bee club’s newsletters, on your web pages. You will find extremely high-quality copies of these images (and several thousand others of various bees and bugs) on the USGS Bee Inventory Flickr Page.

A few months ago, I wrote about the photographer, Sam Droge, when I examined a book he co-authored, Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World. The book is gorgeous and would make a great gift for any bee-person on your shopping list. You can order your own copy of this engaging volume either through the publisher, Quarto, or from Amazon.com  in the USA or Amazon.ca  in Canada.

Honey bees’ wing:

Drone bees’ leg: