Casanova, the male wool carder bee

Last weekend I spent some time deadheading rosebushes and cutting dried branches in one area along the driveway.

There was the usual constant buzzing sounds of bees in the nasturtiums and lambs ears around me as I worked.

I noticed one particular larger bee that would either rest on lambs ear leaves or circle around the patch of lambs ears.

It is a large male wool carder bee.

Now and then he was feasting on the nectar of the lambs ear blossoms (see image above).

But, as I observed, his main activity was to wait for female wool carder bees to fly nearby or land on a lambs ear blossom. Then he would seize the opportunity to, shall we say, get up close and personal with the ladies.

I was about to shoot a good image of a female wool carder bee on a lambs ear blossom.

But suddenly look who landed on her back...

Afterwards he would then rest on a lambs ear leaf, waiting for another female to land on a blossom.

And there he is again, getting more nectar.