This Italian honey bee is in overdrive, a bee movement that looks excited, filled with news of a rich find to take back to take back to her hive. Once inside her hive she'll perform a "Figure 8" dance that communicates to her colleagues the location of pollen or nectar.
Foraging worker bees from an average honey bee colony (approximately 20,000 bees) collect about 125 pounds of pollen each year.
Figure 1
Figure 2
15%-30% of a bee colony's foragers are returning with pollen loads that weigh about 35% of the workers weight.
15%-30% of a bee colony's foragers are returning with pollen loads that weigh about 35% of the workers weight.
Honeybees, I've observed, have four gears, four speeds.
First gear is "overnight" the slowest movement, just enough to keep their hive warm and cozy.
Second gear is normal daytime activity that includes hive and brood maintenance.
Third gear is nectar speed older sister field bees return to the hive and transfer nectar to their younger sibling hive bees.
Fourth gear is a kind of a bee hyper speed overdrive when the oldest super pollen carrier big sisters have returned home with bulging loads of pollen to unload. Their younger "tween" sisters pack the pollen away in a kind of rainbow over the brood nursery honey comb.
Figure 3
Using nectar for adhesion, foraging bees pack pollen on their hind legs in structures known as "pollen baskets," or corbicula. High-protein pollen increases worker bee longevity.
Bees need pollen for growth and development. Larval bees are fed a mixture of bee bread and brood food, which is .
PHOTO CREDITS
Figure 1: Wikipedia commons
Figure 2: https://www.science.org/content/article/honey-bees-fill-saddlebags-pollen-here-s-how-they-keep-them-gripped-tight
Figure 3: Wikipedia commons
Figure 4: https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/bees-carrying-pollen.html
