Pages

Friday, July 22, 2011

How do bees carry pollen?

My fascination with the incredible world of bees continues.  I was watching bees buzzing through our echinacea patch today, and for the first time had the opportunity to really notice how they carried the pollen they were foraging.  At first I almost thought we had a new variety of bee in the yard, but it was the pollen heavily laden on the legs of each bee that made them look like they had thick yellow stripes along their sides.  I read that bees have a way of periodically grooming themselves which packs the pollen more tightly into the tracts under their hind legs called "scopa", and allows them to bring it back to the hive or transfer from flower to flower.  Amazing!  I was also reminded of how perfect and beautiful every last detail in nature is - look at the gorgeous symmetry of the echinacea spirals in the last photo here.





No comments:

Post a Comment