Imogen's photos with the keyword: Bee

A Honeybee on Perennial Basil plant - the pollen stored in this bee's leg sac (or pocket) is bright red in colour, which is unusual as pollen is usually white or shades of yellow. Another view can be seen in the picture within the inset.

Weimar Bee Museum, Germany.

Beautiful Folk Art scenes painted on these antique German beehive boxes. Most of the themes are amusing like the Bear stealing honey (see inset picture in the note in right hand corner).

Early 20th Century mobile bee hives, Weimar Bee Museum, Germany. Beekeepers have a long history of supplying bees to farmers or agriculturists to pollinate crops. These colourful bee hive boxes are conveyed on this wagon and rented out for a period of a few weeks. The brightly coloured hives can easily be seen and located in a field so the beekeeper can retrieve them easily when the bees have done their pollinating job. In the present time, bees are showing signs of stress due to being overworked. Symptoms of stress on the bees include dieback of colonies, diseases, and susceptibility to Varoa mite parasite. Pesticides used on agricultural crops is also to blame for bee dieback. An alarming decline in honey bee (Apis Mellifera) populations worldwide will mean problems with crop production for human consumption. Interestingly the USA has no native honey bees so bees are imported mainly from Europe to pollinate American crops.

A honey bee hovering at the entry to an Azalea flower. What is interesting is one can see the outline of the right-side wing quite clearly at the same time as the high speed blur of the wing motion. Also this female bee has clearly just begun her pollen gathering as there is not a lot of pollen stored in the leg sac which can be seen as a yellow blob on her hind leg.

Two bees in Gallica Rose. Strolling through the garden at dusk I saw these two bees who were motionless and appeared to be resting or sleeping. Bees usually return to the hive each afternoon after their daily work is done. It is lovely to imagine these two bees spent the night in this glorious perfumed rose.

Australian native bee, Amegilla Cingulata (Blue Banded Bee) on Salvia flower. This native bee of Australia does not live in a communal hive like the honey bee. Each female makes her own single nest in a burrow in the ground or sometimes in a wall cavity or such like, where she lays her eggs. However, groups of these bees often make their nests in close proximity to each other in a pseudo community. Individual Amegilla live just one season each before dying off in winter. In Spring the eggs hatch and the life cycle carries on once more. Salvia as a group of plants provide a long season of nourishment for native and other bees in Australia and other similar climates.