{"id":53961,"date":"2018-09-05T05:15:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T11:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=53961"},"modified":"2024-10-13T13:45:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T18:45:25","slug":"rocky-mountain-bee-plant-plus-a-bee-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/09\/05\/rocky-mountain-bee-plant-plus-a-bee-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Mountain Bee Plant Plus a Bee in Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The number of summer days left this year are dwindling and autumn will soon be here. Some of the leaves on the trees in the high country have already begun to change color and down in the valley even the mornings are cooler. Not yet nippy but cool enough.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload aligncenter wp-image-135601 size-full\" title=\"Rocky Mountain Bee Plant with a Bee\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576.jpg\" data-orig-src=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576.jpg\" alt=\"Rocky Mountain Bee Plant with a Bee, Box Elder County, Utah\" width=\"850\" height=\"607\" srcset=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%27%20width%3D%27850%27%20height%3D%27607%27%20viewBox%3D%270%200%20850%20607%27%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%27850%27%20height%3D%27607%27%20fill-opacity%3D%220%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-200x143.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-250x179.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-400x286.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-600x428.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-768x548.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576-800x571.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576.jpg 850w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-orig-sizes=\"(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Rocky Mountain Bee Plant with a Bee &#8211; Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 640, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>On Sunday I was up in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Box_Elder_County,_Utah\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Box Elder County<\/span><\/a> looking for birds but I also felt I had to stop and take some images of Rocky Mountain Bee Plants that were blooming along side the road. I was actually hoping to get a few images of the migrating hummingbirds at the bee plants but that wasn&#8217;t to be, the few that I saw stayed further away than I would have liked. There were plenty of bees hanging around though.<\/p>\n<p>Did you know that there are about 900 species of native bees in Utah? A person could make themselves go bonkers trying to identify them all!<\/p>\n<p>I want to call the flying bee in this image a honey bee, which is an introduced species, but it is missing the black stripes on the abdomen that are usually seen, so for right now I am not going to label it a honey bee.<\/p>\n<p>What I did find interesting about this bee and several others that I scoped with my lens is that the pollen baskets on their legs contained green pollen instead of the yellow that I typically see and then I noticed that the pollen on the anthers of the bee plant is green so then it all made sense to me. Now I&#8217;m wondering what the honey made from the pollen of bee plant tastes like!<\/p>\n<p>Life <em>is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n<p>Mia<\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/flower-and-tree-images\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my flower, shrub and tree photos. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/insects-and-spiders\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">here<\/span><\/a> to see my insect and spider galleries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday I was up in Box Elder County looking for birds but I also felt I had to stop and take some images of Rocky Mountain Bee Plants that were blooming along side the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1148,2548,26,5347],"tags":[15846,2550,2464,6098,6557,7353,12222,4142,4052,6518,4122,6772,2549,5064,6512,6771,5070,4444,4307],"class_list":["post-53961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-box-elder-county-utah","category-honey-bees","category-utah","category-wildflowers","tag-anthers","tag-apis","tag-bee","tag-blooming","tag-blooms","tag-blossoms","tag-cleomella-serrulata","tag-close-up","tag-flight","tag-flowering","tag-flying","tag-green-pollen","tag-honey-bee","tag-pink-wildflowers","tag-pollen","tag-pollen-basket","tag-purple-wildflowers","tag-rocky-mountain-bee-plant","tag-wildflowers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bee-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-2576.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-e2l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":94377,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2021\/09\/02\/late-summer-white-lined-sphinx-moth-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":53961,"position":0},"title":"Late Summer White-lined Sphinx Moth Images","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"September 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Of the hundreds of White-lined Sphinx moth photos I took two days ago I picked three to share today of the moth feeding on Rocky Mountain Bee Plant.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antelope Island State Park&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"White-lined Sphinx moth with pollen covered legs, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/white-lined-sphinx-moth-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-9616.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/white-lined-sphinx-moth-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-9616.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/white-lined-sphinx-moth-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-9616.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/white-lined-sphinx-moth-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-9616.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15666,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/08\/18\/monday-medley-of-bees-moths-and-hummingbirds\/","url_meta":{"origin":53961,"position":1},"title":"Monday Medley of Bees, Moths and Hummingbirds","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"August 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I've compiled a medley of images this morning of bees, moths and hummingbirds that I have photographed this past week to share this morning.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antelope Island State Park&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rufous Hummingbird scratching, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/rufous-hummingbird-scratching-mia-mcpherson-6009.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/rufous-hummingbird-scratching-mia-mcpherson-6009.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/rufous-hummingbird-scratching-mia-mcpherson-6009.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":48219,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/08\/23\/rocky-mountain-bee-plant-monarch-butterfly-in-flight\/","url_meta":{"origin":53961,"position":2},"title":"Rocky Mountain Bee Plant &#038; Monarch Butterfly In Flight","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"August 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Photographing birds while they are flying can be challenging and photographing Monarch Butterflies in flight can be just as challenging to do too.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antelope Island State Park&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Monarch Butterfly landing on a Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/monarch-butterfly-flight-mia-mcpherson-5916.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/monarch-butterfly-flight-mia-mcpherson-5916.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/monarch-butterfly-flight-mia-mcpherson-5916.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/monarch-butterfly-flight-mia-mcpherson-5916.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5864,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/08\/07\/rocky-mountain-bee-plant\/","url_meta":{"origin":53961,"position":3},"title":"Rocky Mountain Bee Plant","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"August 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Rocky Mountain Bee Plants (Cleomella serrulata) are one of the wildflowers that are currently in bloom on Antelope Island State Park in some locations, they aren't as widespread as the Moth Mulleins so I treasure finding them.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antelope Island State Park&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rocky Mountain Bee Plant with Western Yellowjacket, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/western-yellowjacket-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-7105.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/western-yellowjacket-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-7105.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/western-yellowjacket-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-7105.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/western-yellowjacket-rocky-mountain-bee-plant-mia-mcpherson-7105.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15721,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/08\/28\/beautiful-pollinators\/","url_meta":{"origin":53961,"position":4},"title":"Beautiful Pollinators","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"August 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday the light wasn't great in the morning but I did get out to take some images an Antelope Island and there were plenty of pollinators out and about.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antelope Island State Park&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Common Sunflower and pollinators, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sunflower-bees-mia-mcpherson-0143.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sunflower-bees-mia-mcpherson-0143.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sunflower-bees-mia-mcpherson-0143.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sunflower-bees-mia-mcpherson-0143.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9946,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2013\/10\/23\/calliope-hummingbird-and-rocky-mountain-bee-plant\/","url_meta":{"origin":53961,"position":5},"title":"Calliope Hummingbird and Rocky Mountain Bee Plant","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"October 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a quick post this morning of a tiny Calliope Hummingbird feeding on Rocky Mountain Bee Plant that I photographed at the end of August.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Antelope Island State Park&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Calliope Hummingbird and Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/calliope-hummingbird-mia-mcpherson-2027.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/calliope-hummingbird-mia-mcpherson-2027.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/calliope-hummingbird-mia-mcpherson-2027.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/calliope-hummingbird-mia-mcpherson-2027.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}