Summer Long Horned Bees sleeping

Late morning yesterday I discovered these two male Summer Long Horned bees sleeping on a dried flowerhead of one of the Pozo Blue sage shrubs.

It was another cloudy day, with a short period of rainfall earlier in the morning.

We have experienced cooler temperatures, in the 60's, for about a week.

However the sunshine does occasionally break through the clouds, and that is when the bees and butterflies are active.

Seeing the bees asleep on the dried flowerhead proves once again how important it is to not trim the dried flowerheads on native plants. It does seem tempting to trim plants that are no longer blooming, but in the summer some bees tend to sleep on dried flowerheads, and in the winter birds eat the seeds. I tend to leave things alone until late fall, when I trim some of the dried vegetation, and leave some for wildlife.

Here they are again, still sleeping. The photo is taken from a different angle.

When in bloom, the blossoms of the Pozo Blue sprouted out of the holes in the flowerhead.

Because the surface is hairy and rough, it seems to be the perfect surface for the bees to grip onto to sleep.

The bees are waking up.

You can see how their hairs are a little damp from the light rain.

The bees seem to be dancing with legs in the air.

They actually were repositioning themselves to continue sleeping.