How can you capture a close-up image of a male longhorned bee, such as Melissodes agilis or Svastra obliqua expurgata?
Before the sun rises, slip out into the patch of flowers where you've seen them before. They will be sleeping or slighty stirring. (The females return to their nests at night, while the boys sleep singly or in a cluster in a "Boys' Night Out" routine.)
Sometimes you'll see four or five males asleep on a single flower. During the day, they compete with one another for the females and become quite territorial.
"The boys" in our pollinator garden prefer to hang out on the Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifola.
Before approaching them, hold your camera at eye level and slowly walk toward them. Focus on the eyes. Avoid any and all sudden movements. That means no crouching down or jerking the camera or changing your walk pattern. It's one smooth motion. "Go with the flow," as they say. The slow flow.
They often will let you approach them, as this one did. (Taken with a Nikon Z8 camera and a 50mm macro lens. Settings: f-stop, 11; shutter speed, 1/1000 of a second; and IS0, 800.)