They're collecting pollen!

Hi

Just had a few really nice days - temperature over 10C and the bees are flying. I managed to get some photos so will stick them here

Here's a picture of a bee just going to collect some snowdrop pollen. She's just hanging on the side of the flower but has not collected anything yet, (no pollen in her pollen sacks)









This one's a bit more difficult to see.

She's hanging on the side of the snowdrop but is facing the top of the picture. You can see her orange pollen sack just behind her leg. This is actually hairs that hold the pollen. She is very yellow since she is covered with pollen from head to abdomen!








This one is in flight over the snowdrops. Note the fly to the right of the beee














Here's the entrance to the hive. You'll notice one bee towards the bottom of the picture with it's abdomen in the air. Bees have a gland called the 'Nasonov gland' that is used to send a chemical signal (pheremone). They exhibit this kind of posture to fan air over the nasonov gland and so there's a chemical trail blowing the smell of the colony into the air. You often see this behaviour when you've just hived a swarm, where the bees are telling the rest of the colony where the queen is. However they don't swarm in February so another mystery of bee behaviour!

It was really good to see that this, the garden apiary gentle colony had survived so well. If they're getting pollen in then there's probably new brood being laid by the queen. I didn't want to disturb them so didn't open the hive.

However, for all my hope that this was a gentle colony, one of the guard bees came out while I was taking the photo and stung me on my eyelid. Yes, I know I should have been kitted up, but I was lazy! Just goes to show that no matter what you do the bees are wild animals!

All the best

Tony