First of all, photographing honey bees and doing it well boils down to 90% bad luck and 10% good luck. The bees in some of these photos are out of focus. That’s how it goes.

Second of all, the colour red in these poppies doesn’t seem real to me. On film, it looks almost fake. But it’s real.

And I forgot my third point, but check out these poppies (click the images for a better view):

Most of the poppy plants I saw today were full of flowers that hadn’t even bloomed yet. (Or maybe they had bloomed and were dried up pods. I don’t know poppies.)

Even though poppies aren’t native to Newfoundland (I don’t think they are), I’ve put them on my Newfoundland Honey Bee Forage list. If I see or even hear rumours about a honey bee on a flower, and I’m standing next to that flower with my camera, and I’m in Newfoundland at the time, then I’ll put it on my list. This one easily makes the cut.

Not only am I putting poppies on my list of honey bee friendly flowers in Newfoundland, I’m planting them for next year. An extra boost of pollen going into the winter at this time of year is great.

Not many poppies were in bloom today, but the bees were all over the ones that were in full bloom. They seemed more interested in the pollen than the nectar.

Every time I looked down into a poppy, I saw at least one, usually two, bees crawling around inside, bumping themselves into every bit of pollen they could find.

The colour has not been enhanced or altered in these photos in any way. That red is real.

I won’t say exactly where these poppies (and the bees) are located, but it’s on the east coast of the island.

For those of you dedicated enough to read this far, stay tuned. Tomorrow I’ll post some nice slow motion footage of the bees flitting around on these poppies.