The weather got nice today and I was doing some other photos outside, when the persistent buzzing finally got me to look up and see what was going on. It seems this European honeybee (Apis mellifera) thought our holiday lights looked rather appealing, and checked out numerous bulbs along the string before flying off.
Knowing that bees are often guided by how much ultraviolet is reflected by flowers, I have to wonder if the bulbs somehow bounced back more UV than normal, whatever ‘normal’ is. The string was off for the day, so it has nothing to do with the LED output. I don’t think I’m likely to find out anytime soon, because while shooting in infrared isn’t too difficult, ultraviolet is another matter entirely, and pretty expensive to tackle.
Or perhaps the manufacturer just washed the ‘gems’ in pheromones. You never know…