It's National Pollinator Month, and what better time to find a tiny speck of a bee on a seven-foot tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii?

This is a sweat bee of the family Halictidae, the second largest family of bees, comprised of some 4500 species. The family is found on every continent except Antarctica.

Sweat bees--as the name suggests--are attracted to perspiration.  The oldest fossil record dates back to the Early Eocene epoch, which lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago.

A tiny speck of a bee finding a tiny bit of pollen, much as it did millions of years ago...