When we first started discussing the idea of a film about bees and cities, my knowledge of the area extended to the bumblebee and the honey bee. What I quickly came to learn is that the UK is home to a rich diversity of insects that pollinate our plants. As well as the honey bee, there are 26 species of bumblebee, 250 species of solitary bee, 59 species of butterfly and a remarkable 7,000 or so known species of fly.
The images in the gallery below – just a small selection of the UK’s many species – were all produced by Dr Nadine Mitschunas, who worked at University of Reading as a research technician for the Urban Pollinators Project. Photographing bees and other pollinators isn’t easy and requires lots of patience. But you don’t need special equipment or software: Nadine uses a Sony Cyber-shot RX100 compact camera without a macro lens, and normally crops her images with basic photo software such as Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
You can watch Nadine taking photos in Insects in the City, and see many more of her photographs on the Urban Pollinators blog.