Carpenter Bees
Lavender attracts three varieties of bees and the paper wasp in my front yard. These guys are Carpenter Bees. They don’t have stingers but are still rather aggressive. Despite their large size, they are harder to shoot in an interesting way than the honey bees since they are much faster and much more impatient. In the top photo, if you look, you can see my reflection in the eye. The bee below seems to have lost an antennae.
Sean Kane 
Wow, I never heard of carpenter bees before. I feel sorry for the little guy who lost his antennae.
April 28, 2010 at 6:42 pm
From what I can tell reading about them, they like to live in wooden structures and are somewhat like huge termites. They are about 2x – 3x the size of a honey bee. They look and sound menacing but are mostly harmless (except to wooden structures).
April 29, 2010 at 9:20 am
Have to agree that big fat honey bees are quite easy to shoot, but you’ve done a real nice job with these Carpenters…
April 29, 2010 at 8:12 am