More Mysteries of Nature

So what's up here? Is this guy passed out, or has he passed on? Why is he planted face-down in the gravel? I found a big bumble like him last summer on one of the butterfly bushes, nose stuck deep in the florets, looking fast asleep. It stayed like that for a day and a night, while I read all kinds of anecdotal nonsense online about sleeping bees. The next day, it was on the ground below the bush, as dead as a fuzzy striped doornail. This one above, he was gone the next day, probably having provided something a tasty morsel. Sad. But easier to photograph than a live one. Still, it's so early in the season, could he haved died from natural causes already? It's too nice out today to go looking stuff up right now....