Whew, that was close

A close call in the garden, that I wasn't aware of until I got very near to the action.

The leaf cutting bee is on a blossom of the Coreopsis Big Bang Cosmic Evolution plant, foraging for pollen.

Apparently an orb weaver spider was under one of the Coreopsis petals, lying in wait.

At first I thought it was a smaller bee, such as a sweat bee.

The leaf cutting bee now has its back to the spider, which is getting closer.

I was about to interfere, to chase the spider away.

Happily, the bee flew away.

Interesting that the spider looked much smaller than the leaf cutting bee, when it was under the petal. Now that it is all alone on the blossom, it actually is at least half the size of the bee.

I learned later that some orb-weaving spiders prey on bees, especially late in the summer season, when they have grown larger. This orb-weaving spider doesn't seem large enough, but I'm sure it still would have been able to bite and immobilize the bee.