Interesting scene here. I was bending down to look at some flowers and heard some buzzing. When I looked down, I saw this paper wasp repeatedly stinging and wrestling with this dusty bee. I posted some of the photos on Twitter and Alex Wild suggested that the bee looked like a drone honey bee.
Does anyone know what happened here? Do drone honey bees try to just mate with anything that flies and is about the right size? Was this some fatal payback for some unwanted advances?
I stuck around and the bee did die. The wasp groomed itself for a minute, flitted around a few flowers and then left the area.
A close-up of a Asian Spiny-backed spider in its web.
Taken with a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens.