For days now, I’ve been observing this male wool bee (Photos 1 and 2), which tirelessly flies in circles around a lush purple toadflax, trying to chase away any rivals. For example, this field bumblebee, which usually prefers to collect pollen inside the flower to avoid the woolly bee’s attacks (Photos 3), or this mud wasp, which repeatedly takes refuge in the nearby lemon balm (Photo 4). The karst white butterfly, however, was allowed to drink nectar in complete peace (Photo 5). The competition is probably only about the pollen. Actually, for days now I’d thought all its efforts were in vain—that the woolly bee’s flying season was over. But I was proven wrong. Today, the first female appeared (Photo 6). There’s probably a second generation of woolly bees. And so the male’s persistence had paid off after all: Photo 7 shows him mating with the female. Now I’m curious to see if more males and females will show up in the next few days...