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@earth · August 15, 2026

Photo by Earth on August 15, 2026. May be an image of bee and text.

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Photos by @quiet.macro Bees may be tiny creatures, but they unite vast landscapes. The Bluebanded Bee pictured here forages from dawn until dusk, spending hours each day collecting nectar and spreading pollen across various plant families in its native Australia.¹ As bees travel from one flower to the next, they transfer not just pollen, but microbes that may go on to silently shape the health of the next visitor.² This National Bee Day, take a moment to celebrate the movers and shakers of the natural world, and the invisible webs of life they spin with every flap of their wings and vibration of their bodies. ¹Jena, M. K., & Sahoo, S. (2022, June). Blue banded bee, Amegilla spp.: A potential pollinator in pollination of crop plants. AgriCos e-Newsletter, 3(6), 4–8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365891561_Blue_Banded_Bee_Amegilla_spp_A_Potential_Pollinator_in_Pollination_of_Crop_plants ²Argueta-Guzmán, M., Spasojevic, M. J., & McFrederick, Q. S. (2025). Solitary bees acquire and deposit bacteria via flowers: Testing the environmental transmission hypothesis using Osmia lignaria, Phacelia tanacetifolia, and Apilactobacillus micheneri. Ecology and Evolution, 15(4), e71138. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71138