welcome to another slow motion look at honeybees in flight this is filmed on march the 6th
and the temperature is at 66 degrees fahrenheit that's 19 celsius and these are female foragers
that are scouring the countryside in search of pollen for brood and then of course nectar for
the carbohydrates and the wind is gusting at 40 miles an hour so you can see bits of pollen flying
through the air and you see these bees collect and move away and regroup as they get closer to the
camera and this is a great opportunity to share some physical traits that honeybee workers possess
that are specific to pollen gathering and the presence of brood back in the hive has stimulated
these workers to go out and forage for pollen because that's the protein necessary to raise
new brew this time of year and since real pollen isn't yet available to the honeybees i provide
dry pollen substitute called ultra b honey bees have hairs all over their bodies including hairs
on their large compound eyes and this makes them well suited to pollination as pollen clings all
over their bodies these hairs have split ends on them which generate a static charge so that pollen
grains will jump passively onto the bees bodies when they land on flowers looking for nectar
also notice that even though the bees have four wings you can see it clearly in slow motion
that they connect together so they appear and function as just two wings there are three body
parts of the bees that's the head the thorax and the abdomen the wings are connected to the thorax
and the abdomen of course is carrying honey or nectar and today it's likely that they filled
up on honey before they departed the hive on the head you'll notice two mandibles pointing down
these are worker bees so those mandibles are used for everything from feeding brood inside the hive
to working wax or even gluing up propolis when the wet is warmer
and these workers have to groom off their hairs and concentrate the pollen onto their hind legs
so they can transport it back to the hive watch them draw their forelimbs over their antennae
there is an especially adapted radius in their tibia when the leg bends it closes against a tiny
spur that makes a circle around their antenna and this helps them rake the grains off of the antenna
they could do the same thing if they need to clean dirt off and things like that you'll often see
them also shake their front legs and down across their tongue and that's so that they can collect
honey or nectar and use it to stick the pollen together as they groom back over their hairs and
collect the pollen into balls on their hind legs that way they can take it back i hope that you'll
enjoy watching these bees perform these activities in super slow motion thanks for watching today
and i hope you get some warm weather wherever you are so it will help your bees collect the
resources that they need for that valuable spring brood i'm frederick dunn thanks for watching
so
you