Corn bees' wings

There seems to be a lack of information, not to mention images, of corn bees' wings on the internet. So this post shall rectify that (and hopefully answer JHRME's questions). ;-)

Bees' wings are tiny bits of chaff from the corn cob. Here's what they look like, with a pen for size comparison.

Here's a closer look, albeit not terribly clear.

Yep, they're just teeny-tiny little bits of 'stuff', very thin, and they blow around easily. When unloading corn into the grain bins, these little "wings" float around everywhere. The ground gets covered, sometimes even several inches deep, depending on the wind. Of course, if it's windy, they blow all over the place... and end up on trees, houses, lawns, windows, people, people's eyes, etc. I wanted to get a pic of them on the ground, but unfortunately today the ground is covered with something else. It's white. See below.

So now you know.

It snowed

The birdbath was frozen again yesterday morning. It also had a slight layer of white on it.

There were some of those white flakes on the deck floor, too. But look... there were also pink flakes!

There were even slight drifts of the pink flakes in front of the garage.

They drifted up against the grass, too.

Yep, it's bees' wings. Lots of bees' wings. ("Bees' wings" are what farmers call those annoying bits of corn chaff that fly everywhere. For more info, check out that link.)

Nearly every time the guys go to put corn into (or take some out of) the bin to the northeast of our house, the wind also changes to the northeast. I think it's magic. :-Þ

Update: From moments ago (Wed. a.m.):

With the size of those flakes, they're gonna add up pretty fast. But hopefully they'll stop soon. And the good news is... they're not pink! :)

Bees' wings & corn

For a description and an up-close look at bees' wings, see this post.

Ground bees revisited

Last week I posted about my mystery bugs which turned out to be ground bees. Even though I watered my flowers in the barrel, thinking I probably drowned out the bees, they dug out their holes again and made them even bigger.

I was able to get some much better shots of the bees. It helped to know that I wasn't going to get stung while I had my camera and my nose practically on top of them.

Just look at all the pollen on those legs!

Their wings beat so fast they become invisible!

The bee below really worked his way around the center of that moss rose (the order I took the photos is counter clockwise starting at the top right).

(Click to enlarge.)

Not a monarch

A couple weeks ago I found this little butterfly on my sedum bush. It's a Red Admiral. I think sometimes people confuse them with monarchs because of their wing color on the top side, but the wings are distinctly different underneath.

See? Not at all like a monarch (see yesterday's post).

Okay, let's see the other side of those wings.

C'mon... you can do better than that...

Better... better....

There we go! Similar in color, but actually very different in design.

This little butterfly has a long way to go, too. They winter in southern Texas.

Incidentally, my sedum has progressed a lot since then. Here's what it looked like yesterday morning:

It was just full of little ground bees.