Thursday, May 1, 2014

Apian Orgies! Bees Shamelessly Wallowing in Pollen

Wild Pollinators

In honor of May Day: One of the local bees wallowing in my cactus flowers. It's a leaf-cutter bee, the ones that leave your roses and bougainvillia in tatters.


Watch the bee's hind legs as she stands on her head to gather the pollen. They do not have pollen baskets like the European honey bees, so they pack pollen onto the hairs on their abdomens. The front legs hold onto the filament at the base of the stamen and the back legs scrape pollen off the anthers.

It's the same clip, run at normal speed, slow-motion and slow + zoom.

2 comments:

Lindy said...

Hallo Lazy Gardener, my location NE Netherlands. I am a bio dynanic bee keeper. Found your site but photos taken off is that right? Wanted to see the bee wallowing in pollen... And the foxes. Any ideas please greetings Lindy vd Meulen

Lazy Gardens said...

Lindy -
It is a video of the bees, and a video of the fox.

They are still on the blog posts.