garden pollinators

While I'm weeding in my garden these days the sound of little wings is so loud! (That and the sound of my sweat dripping in this heat wave...)

I have heard there are thousands of native bees and other pollinators in New England. I bet many are tiny. As I look around for pollinators to photograph, I see many are really small. I notice bees, wasps, flies and butterflies. I know the flies have big eyes, and bees have smaller eyes, and wasps have waists (in general - except for the exceptions).
Sometimes its hard to get a photo of just one pollinator! Most of my pollinator photos ended up being on the little yellow dill flowers. I've read that these are great to have in the garden as they attract beneficial insects. I let the dill come up where it self seeds from the previous year - all over the garden. Some pollinators were also on borage, echinacia, daisies and Johnny-jump-ups. If you want a plant that attracts pollinators, walk through a local nursery and select the plant with the most bees on it! I need to ask our local bee keepers about their honey bees this year. We have four set of boxes near our community gardens where I took these photos. In previous years, it seems I have seen more honey bees in my garden. On the day I took these pictures, I only saw one honey bee (though a really nice one who got the number one photo spot!) among at least ten or twenty other types of bees.