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Well, the story of this post begins with me going through my backyard with my camera in my hand to download the card memory to my PC (I have a small studio where I do my work, located in a small room apart from our family home)... Then I looked at one of our aloe plants (Aloe vera) which here in our country is called "Sábila" and I was enchanted and surprised by its beautiful flowers which sprout in the middle of the dry season...

I immediately approached the plant and took a closer look at its flowers. It was there that I noticed the presence of small stingless black bees, locally called "Pegones" and whose scientific name is Trigona silvestriana... There were about a dozen of them feeding on the aloe flowers!... I had to take pictures of them and take advantage of the fact that -coincidentally- my camera had my 100 mm macro lens put!...

I recognise this species thanks to its almost transparent wing tips, which differentiates it from other similar species under the genus Trigona... It is a very abundant species and responsible for the pollination of many varieties of plants in our region. Their colonies are usually small and use cracks in walls, roofs and holes in trees to build their hives. As they do not have a sting, they do not sting, but they can defend their hives by adhering to the skin and releasing a type of sticky liquid. They are cute insects, non-aggressive and docile to photograph as you can see.

The little black bees "stole the show" thanks to their attractive presence, but I will add a couple of macro shots of the aloe flowers, as they were the main target of these photos in the first place... So they deserve it and they're cute!... ;)

_{ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL NOTE: Photographs captured with my Nikon D7000 DSLR camera in RAW format, then processed in Adobe Camera RAW for adjustments regarding light, sharpening, contrast and depth... The shots are then exported to JGP format on which minor modifications such as straightening and adding watermarks were carried out using PhotoScape 3.6.3.}

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Thank you very much for your visit and appreciation!

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Montalbán, Carabobo, Venezuela.