Friday, June 12, 2009

Bombus terrestris on Helianthus tuberosus

Today on my walk through the wonderful parks here in my hometown Weinheim, I noticed a tall flower Helianthus tuberosus ("Topinambur" in german) which seemed to pretty frequently visited by bumble bees ("Bombus Terrestris"), so I took my camera and my "bee vision" filter XBV2 to find out why....

[click on image yields a larger one]

Tetrachromatic shot (UV+B+G+R) using XBV2 filter:


Trichromatic "bee vision" shot (UV+B+G) using XBV2 filter:


The proof that this flower strongly reflects UV and actually shows that "bulls eye pattern" in UV is here:


The visible light components do not show any of that pattern, actually the flower looks pretty much like this in visible light as seen with normal human eyes:


I also found it pretty interesting to notice that strong UV reflection of the bumble bee, especially of its "rear part".

Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos