Photographer Joe Neely and his wife were out on a stroll with their cameras late one afternoon. They had wanted to photograph wildflowers blossoming near their Arizona house.
They did, however, capture something much more lovely.
The pair knew they weren’t alone after stopping beside a grove of orange globe mallow flowers. A bee was buzzing around in almost every flower, but not with the usual zeal.
The bees, it turned out, were exhausted. Their workday had come to an end.
“As they wandered about, we joked that they looked pollen drunk,” Neely told The Dodo. “Shortly after, every of the plant’s blossoms had a motionless occupant in them.” They were dozing off.”
It was a lovely sight to behold. But then something even more delightful happened.
“As sunset grew darker, one last bee was trying hard to find his own flower, but they were all taken,” Neely said. “So he crawled into this flower with this other bee, who shifted a little to give him room.”
The two sleepy bees then proceeded to cuddle, sharing that single flower.
“They were very adorable,” Neely said.
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Before he and his wife left them to rest, Neely softly snapped the cuddling bees. It’s currently one of his most popular images.
Later on, Neely discovered that the pale-eyed insects are known as globe mallow bees, after the flowers. While some bee species return to their colonies at dusk, these bees choose to sleep among the flowers they like.
And, as Neely’s lovely images demonstrate, they occasionally share them with a friend.
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