Sunflower season and pollen baskets

Posted by Jon on Jul 26, 2010 in Bee behaviour | 3 comments

Living in the heart of the Poitou-Charentes in France, we are surrounded by sunflower fields at this time of year. We can see our bees heading off to our nearest field a few hundred yards away and coming back laden with bright yellow pollen.

For the first time we have seen the front entrance of our hives turning yellow with the volume of pollen coming back to the hive – this is not something that we have seen before so I am very hopeful that this is a sign of a healthy colony bringing home a good harvest!

(click to enlarge)

I’m fascinated by the way these bees manage to carry the tiny grains of pollen all the way to the hive in the pollen baskets on their back legs. First they gather all the pollen from the rest of their body which is held in place by static and tiny hairs, they then place it into a pollen press located between the two larges segments of their back legs which makes the pollen into the pellet that you see in the pollen basket. Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher used a high-resolution scanning electron microscope to take this picture of a pollen press which is remarkable…

Copyright Discovery Magazine

I’m now saving my centimes so I can purchase the book (which I will of course review!).