February Love

 I'm working on a project. 

These photos come from the book BUMBLE BEES OF NORTH AMERICA by Paul H. Williams, Robbin W. Thorp, Leif L. Richardson & Sheila R. Colla. Photos are from abbreviations on photos listed in first photo here: 

First, I like bees! We can't live without them! I've always had it in my mind to make a 'bee afghan'! I found this great book, but was overwhelmed with the fact there are 46 species of bumble bees north of Mexico. Then I researched a wonderful PDF on Colorado University website! I found out 24 of those 46 species are in Colorado! I took it even further..... there are 13 species in El Paso County (Colorado Springs) Now knowing that the bee's know county lines...I'm sticking with 'my' thirteen!  ;)

Ah, yes, I'm starting to see the pattern!! Sorry for the quality of the photos, but this is mainly for my own reference, but here are 'my' thirteen:

Oh, boy, I'm going to have fun trying to decern the difference! I'll be watching for them on my yellow Potentilla shrubs out front this summer! The queens and workers of each species have variation of colors/patterns. I took the color from 'majority' of the queens of each species. In the meantime, I will print this below out and rearrange (while keeping each species pattern together) then, finally, will be to determine the rows of each color within the length I think is appropriate. It might be a shawl! 

~Stay Tuned~