I guess I'm first this week...
I did not catch a bee in flight...actually, I caught several in flight, but they weren't my real subjects...a friend of ours who keeps bees was opening her hive yesterday and invited me up to get some photos. I REALLY wish I'd had that 105 Micro, but went with my 24-70 for my first visit. I'm going to join her next time she goes in and hopefully I will have the 105 by then! On top of getting some interesting photos, I got a very interesting lesson on bees and bee keeping...maybe more learning and some honey next time! Unless otherwise noted, D4, 24-70, f8, 1/500 at ISO 400...
The first is a shot to give you the general idea...she has just started opening up the closest of the hives with another hive behind her...the entrance (and a feeder) are located on the bottom of the hive on the opposite side from where she is standing. You will notice three different sections of the hive...
In the next image, she has pulled off the top two "boxes" and she is inspecting the boards in the bottom section of the hive...
Closer and cropped below is one of the boards in the bottom section. At about the bottom right third, I call your attention to the large bee with some green "paint" on it...that is the queen and she was quite a busy-bee...my host was happy to find her in the bottom section as apparently they work bottom to top of the hive...
She checked all of the bottom boards and some on the next level as she put the hive back together...the white box on the top is smaller than the other two. The opening between the two bottom boxes allows the queen to move back and forth, but she can't get into the top box...So, no eggs and just pure honey! This is a close up of one of those boards...
Well, it was quite a fun time and an excellent learning experience...and we did get to taste some of their wonderful honey! I was well covered (except for my hands) and had a net hat, but I must say it took some time to get used to all the bees flying around me - especially when looking through the camera and not knowing where it was. We all managed to avoid getting stung and the bees were apparently doing very well so I now look forward to our next encounter - when I have on gloves and have some macro capability!
Oh yea, I have done some tests with the Nikon 1 V2, might try to get something with that to post later in the week!