The photo just begs for a caption.

The praying mantis, with a female sweat bee grasped in its spiked forelegs, suddenly turns its head to look at the photographer.

Actually, three photographers: Davis insect photographers/bee enthusiasts Allan Jones and Gary Zamzow and I. We were shooting images in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.

Jones, admiring the first image (below), commented "I love the way the mantis has set breakfast aside to stare directly at you." With that, Jones served up three captions:  

"Oh, is that your bee?"

"What are you looking at?"

"Threat or prey?"

Meanwhile, we were obviously interrupting the praying mantid's bee breakfast. 

"The female sweat bee is carrying some pollen she toiled to provide for her young," said native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "The mantid is also ducking under a spider webline, and needs to be careful that it does not become the meal of another sit and wait predator. It's a real jungle out there!"

Thorp, who has been monitoring the garden since October 2009, a year before it was planted, has so far discovered 75 different species of bees--and counting.

Yes, sometimes amid the predators and the prey, it's definitely a "real jungle out there."