Yellow-Faced Bumble Bees at work

We definitely seem to have a lot of Yellow-Faced Bumble Bees Bombus vosnesenskii in the garden.

They are so cute.

Here is a rear view of one squeezing into a partially opened California poppy.

Those little legs...

The bee looks like it is wearing a hat, but that's the top of the poppy that is still stuck to one of the petals.

Caught in the act!

Some short-tongued bumble bees can't reach the nectar that is hidden deep in the long-tubed flowers of plants such as this Pozo Blue Sage Salvia 'Pozo Blue' . The bees then resort to robbing the nectar from the blossom by biting a small hole at the base of the flower where the nectar is stored, and then insert their proboscis right into the nectar.

This Yellow-Faced Bumble Bee demonstrates the process.

Bees love buckwheat blossoms for the pollen and nectar.

This Yellow-Faced Bumble Bee is climbing red buckwheat flower head Eriogonum grande var. rubescens.

The beautiful buckwheat is native to the San Miguel and Santa Cruz Islands of the California Channel Islands.