Not a Bee

The creature in the photos is not a bee, but a Drone Fly Eristalis sp, a superb honey bee mimic.

In my experience of newspaper articles about honey bees, about 50% of the time the stock photo used to illustrate the article will be of a fly, not a bee. Usually the not a bee in question is a Drone Fly.

If you want to check out the difference between the two, go to my earlier post about feral honey bees.