WildView™

August 4, 2024

Busy Bees

- as seen by -

Eric Januszkiewicz

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With summertime in full swing in Colorado, the honeybees (Apis mellifera) are hard at work. Summer is a season of collecting pollen and nectar to feed the growing hive, and hopefully start producing stores to sustain the colony for the rest of the year. The queen bee is constantly laying more and more eggs, producing loads of primarily female worker bees. These worker bees all have specific roles, many leaving the hive in search of blooming plants to provide the necessary pollen and nectar.

Pollen is brought back in specialized structures found on their hind legs called corbicula, or more commonly, pollen baskets. When bees land within a flowering plant, the pollen is electrostatically attracted to the hairs found on their legs, which the bees then groom into their pollen baskets to bring back to the hive. Pollen is very high in protein and thus is a vital food source for them. The nectar, on the other hand, is collected via a long appendage on their mouth called a proboscis. The proboscis is used to suck up the nectar which they store in their honey stomach for transport back. Special enzymes in the bees’ stomachs help to convert the nectar to honey.

Once at the hive again, the bees will essentially regurgitate the processed nectar into specialized comb cells built for that purpose. The bees then use their wings to help evaporate water from the digested nectar until it reaches the point at which we would recognize it as honey. The cells are then capped for safe storage.

It is truly amazing to see the intricacies of how a hive works and all the specialized effort that goes into simply maintaining a colony.

This shot was taken of a worker bee collecting pollen and nectar to bring back to the colony. The patch of Russian sage is a favorite of theirs when in season so it can be a fun challenge trying to catch them in action.

Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 II

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