Yellow pollen comeing in

This Milbert's Tortoiseshell from last weekend.

Konrad

All of my 'naturally' located beehives here have disappeared. I find that strange since they have been here for as long as I can remember. There are more and more killer beehives located down here each year, but don't know if that would have anything to do with the other beehives disappearing.

Once again, excellent photos!

Kt

Julie

Konrad, I think it is the nectar from flowers that bees use to make the honey. However, my question is this: does the pollen they collect on their legs play any part in making the honey? I know it is spread from flower to flower, but some must make it back home too.

And one more question, if you don't mind: why do they make honey? If we didn't come and take it from them, what would they do with it?

Thanks for sharing your wonderful shots.

>> I think it is the nectar from flowers that bees use to make the honey<<

Correct!...they take it home in there gut and barf it out!...do you still like honey?....LOL
Did you know, it takes 6 honey bees entire lifetime, app. 6 to 7 weeks, to make one tea spoon of honey!

>> However, my question is this: does the pollen they collect on their legs play any part in making the honey? <<

No, pollen is very critical to bees because it's food for rearing young ones, it's being fed to the larva, also nectar or diluted honey. There is always some pollen going into the honey because some of it gets stored in cells / combs and doesn't get used up, when extracting honey, some gets into the honey with other pollen residue which is good for you!
It's always a good sign when you see pollen coming in, that tells you, there is a Queen and she is laying!
A Queen can lay up to 2000 eggs per day.

>>And one more question, if you don't mind: why do they make honey? If we didn't come and take it from them, what would they do with it?

Honey is there major food source for adult bees and it's the only food source when they are confined in the hive from October to April [far north] Honey / sugar is also used to make combs / wax.
Honey bees are always on the look out for new food sources and when condition are right, they go for it and store it in cells / comb.

If we didn't take the honey from them, there would simply be tons of honey being wasted, because honey bees don't know that winter is arriving and the whole reproduction comes to a stand still, by the time winter sets in, all bees are
dead what have collected all that honey.
It's only the new bees what are hatched in fall can carry over until spring, because they haven't flown much, it's the time in the air what really kills bees from wearing out there wings. Beekeepers never take honey away in the brood box, [lower one or two box] I have two, [shown in picture] each box containing 10 frames. Only when there is a good nectar source, [main flow] is when we put extra boxes on top of the two bottom ones and it's only this honey they don't need.
Konrad

Thank you for the bee information, very interesting.

My neighbor inspected his hives the other day. All three original queens have been replaced. The original queens had paint on their rumps. Maybe honey this year. Will see.

Eric

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=56&ItemID=12435

Kt

Did you ever get stung?

Julie