Bees on Penstemon

Some bees, like this Brown-backed Bumble

and this European Woolcarder, go right into the flowers.

Others, like this Great Northern Bumblebee queen, are too big, but her tongue suffices.

This Eastern Carpenter is too large and too short-tongued, so she straddles the flower and sticks her tongue into the nectary from outside. This is one bee species that didn’t get the pollination memo. This is sometimes called “robbing” but that seems a bit moralistic, no?