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Over the weekend I regaled you with the story of my camera’s shutter. Today is the payoff. Using the mechanical shutter set at 1/2,000th of a second, and with the lens set to the point where it gets maximum magnification (about 150mm for my camera), I set out to take pictures of our local honeybees. Here’s one swooping in to steal a likely looking flower from one of its friends. Its wings are not completely stopped, but pretty close!

Next up I’ll try to get a picture of our local bumblebee.¹ They’re bigger, they tend to hover more, and their wings beat a little bit slower. This makes for a potentially more impressive photo. However, for those of you who aren’t big fans of our chitinous cousins, I promise nothing but non-insect pictures for the rest of this week.

¹The singular is deliberate. We seem to have exactly one.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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