Hot and dry in south Alabama...

[Intheswamp]

In south Alabama we're getting sporadic rain here and there...the flow is over and it's getting dry...and hot.  :-\

The bees have started working bahia grass pretty good and using duckweed to their advantage...  Ed

[Intheswamp]

[yockey5]

Great pics!

[AllenF]

Very good looking pics.   And your grass is still green.   Here, I noticed that I have patches of crunchy dry grass out now.   

[FRAMEshift]

Are those bees taking nectar/pollen from the duckweed or just drinking water?

[hardwood]

Love the pics! Y'all didn't get any rain from Beryl? We've been wet for 5 days now...we needed it!

Scott

[BlueBee]

Great photos!  I especially like that last one. 

Isn’t it normally hot and dry in Bama in the summer?

BTW…  We’re wet and 55F today!

[Intheswamp]

Glad ya'll like the pictures.  Yelp, hot and dry here.

Allen, the grass is still green but some of the native weeds are browning out.  Naturally the bahia grass is tough as leather once it starts getting dry.  I live in the middle of bahia hay fields, privet hedge jungles and woodland...I claim my yard is an Auburn Experimental Station....it has a little of everything in it!  :lol:

FRAMEshift, I'm pretty sure they're loading up with water for the swamp coolers.  I've posted another picture with this post that shows better a bee with her proboscis dipping into the water between the duckweed petals.

Scott, we just got some scattered showers here and there....really spaced out.   Downtown got a storm, heavy rain, and hail about the size of the end of your thumb.  We're seven miles out of town and didn't get anything but a heck'uva light show...that was really interesting, a tall, towering thunderhead to the east with bolts of lighting dancing around it's edge and heavy flashing from within the cloud and just above the top edge of it were twinkling stars!!!!  Really cool but would've been nicer if the rain (not hail) had moved on over our way.  Today it sprinkled just enough to see some rain drops on the window...didn't even wet the ground.  Farmers are already getting "iffy" sounding around here....corn's looking good,though, and beginning to tassle but it needs rain now...hay is already seeming a bit interesting, too.  A friend of mine that grew up in a feed store down around the Ala/Fla line and now runs it told me that within her circle of communication with some of the old folks that south Alabama/Gerogia and NE Florida could possibly see drought worse than Texas did last year...I hope they're wrong!!!   :-\

BlueBee, there's a spell normally during the middle of summer when it gets hot and dry.  The problem in our region for several years now has been an extended drought that dries the creeks and ponds up.  Hay crops are burned up, etc.,.  But, you're right, Alabama is hot and dry in the summer BUT *humid*...hard to explain that one but I think it's from our proximity to the gulf to receive humidity off of it but not the cooling gulf breezes....we're kinda in the doldrums here. :)

Anyhow, here's another picture showing this girl getting a good sip of water. ;)

Ed

[Joe D]

Great pics, I know what you mean hot and dry here also.

Joe

[hardwood]

That last pic is a beaut swamp! What camera/lens are you using? I've been compiling pictures of queens for a while now...been planning for a company calendar. My point and shoot just doesn't cut it.

Scott

[Intheswamp]

Thanks ya'll.  I enjoy taking pictures, especially close-ups.  Just wish I could figure out how to economically use my 35mm rails, bellows, macros, etc.,  :-\

Scott, I'm actually using a point-and-shoot digital...one of the lower priced plastic-bodied ones, too....picked it up for $80.00.  It is a Canon Power Shot A1200 (silver): http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Powershot-A1200-Digital-Silver/dp/B004HW73SO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1338565305&sr=8-4

When I got interested in honey bees I knew I would want to take pictures of them and didn't want to use my wife's older Elph.  I didn't a little research, read some reviews, and concentrated on macro-use.  The A1200 is one of the few point and shoot cameras that still has a viewfinder...a plus for me.  Though I seldom use the viewfinder I have it in the event that a scene is too bright and washes out the lcd screen.  

There's a few settings that the A1200 is capable of that is a plus for close-up photography and at 12mp you can crop your images a good bit and still retain good resolution/detail.  I can get within a couple of inches of an object.  

It also uses standard AA batteries (2) which is a big plus.  I purchased 4 AA Eneloope rechargeable batteries and the charge on them holds up really good...the Eneloopes seem to work better than the Duracells (higher mah, I think).  

Another reason I chose it was it's cost...I figured it'd end up ooeey and gooey and didn't want an expensive camera for this purpose.  I will say that the first A1200 that I purchased was a dud...really, really, bad...giant, blurry pixelation...I sent it back and got a silver one (after determining the bees don't like black ones) and this one has worked great.  I've noticed though that getting it close to the bees they do take notice of it a little, not bad but a little...I think it might be light glinting off of the silver bezel or something...the bezel around the lens is highly polished.  It may be they're attracted to the lens assembly itself being as it's black.  I'm thinking of *painting* some of the front white. :)  Who cares, it's a bee camera!!! ;)

Anyhow, so much for the camera review...it's cheap, does a fair job, and simple to operate.
Ed