Great shot Tabby.

wildflowers said:Oh! that's what Tabby is talking about! How did I miss her before?
Thanks Ann!

YVW!

She's da big mama o' dem all.

Wow!! Beautiful Queen...

Does anyone know how long it takes a banner to get posted? Dave said he'd use the bee banners I made almost a month ago and I've been on the lookout.

He has them in a queue to show up as they are approved. I think he said he had enough for everyday for 3 months so it could take another 2 months or so.

Cool.

I'm never sure whether to post my pictures here or in the birds and bees forum. I'll post them here since they do feature a honey bee. Here's a picture trail of a wild bee (wool carder bee) being pushed around by a honey bee that wanted the same flower. I'd heard that honey bees could drive out native bees, but so far it seems like they are pretty good at sharing the flowers. I see all sorts of native bees, some huge and some very tiny sharing the same flowers with the honey bees without aggression.

The wild bee starts out feasting on this sempervivum blossom:


Then the honey bee arrives and walks up to the flower:


The honey bee just pushed right up under the wool carder bee and the wool carder bee just lets him. No fighting.


And the honey bee leaves:

I love this picture... maybe you guys will appreciate it!
RobertB

Thirsty bees' bee butts. I see that a lot at the water dish I put out for the birds and bees.

Tabby this forum is mainly for honey bees but feel free to show off other kinds of bees here.

It may be that they were after different parts of the flower one could have been after nectar while the other was after pollen. Gnerally, honey bees aren't agressive when foraging but some other kinds of bees may attack them and that's when the fighting starts.

Robert that is a cool pictures. A young friend of mine cautions that we shouldn't be taking pictures of bee butts because that's the business end that can cause pain. I told her it was hard to get any other view of them

Another thirsty bee picture.


A darker thirsty bee:


A really dark thirsty bee:


The community water dish:


The hives have quite a mix of bees since they were wild caught.

Very very nice pictures Tabby. Thank you for sharing them.

Mindy03 said:Very very nice pictures Tabby. Thank you for sharing them.

Bee u tiful......

Ridesredmule said:Bee u tiful......

Fantastic pictures, Tabby!!

RobertB, I just noticed your picture up there too... I love it, looks like they are mooning you!

Thanks everyone!

One of my hives has been washboarding for over a week. Is this normal? Washboarding is when the bees rock forward and back. Some people think it looks like scrubbing, hence the name washboarding. To me it looks like hoovering - kinda like when you move back and forth when vacuuming. It just seems to be that they should have better things to do, like hitting up all the dutch white clover.

The pollen in the hardy hibiscus seems particularly sticky. I hope the bees can get this sticky stuff off. It seems to hamper their flying too.

Don't worry Tabby those bees know exactly how to deal with sticky pollen. They will have help at the hive getting it off.

Cool bee photos Tabby.