Check out the tongues darting out as honey bees suck up water from a corrugated plastic floor of a screened bottom board.
From what I can tell, morning dew forms naturally inside the corrugated plastic. The water doesn’t pool inside the plastic. The hive is slightly tilted downwards to the front entrance where the water drains out slowly — and the bees drink it up.
You don’t have coltsfoot flowering yet? It’s been out for a while now in Northern NS.
We probably have Coltsfoot. I just haven’t seen them because I’ve been working long hours lately with no time to stop and smell the roses.
Lovely photos! Their eyes look so beady. Good to see them doing so well.
I’m waiting for the dandelions, too, but I’ll let the bees get into them before I eat them all. I expect the cherry trees on Pleasant Street will blossom soon, which should be a nice treat for the lovely bee friends!
One of the seed companies I order from sent a free “save the bees” package of native wildflower seed, which I have planted over here. I hope the bees like them!
I really like the wide-macros. What type of lens are you using?
Lens? I wish I had a camera with a real lens. Nope, for these shots I used a little snapshot camera on auto-focus, a Sony Cyber-shot. See this comment for the details:
http://goo.gl/Q1NMO
I hope to get an all-in-one camera that can shoot HD video, marco shots and can do time-lapse — once I stop spending all my money on bees, that is.
I have to admit, sometimes when I look at close-up photos of bees, for a moment they look like a B-rated alien flick. Those tongues, while pretty cool, are a little strange looking.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my girls very much. They just freak me out a little sometimes.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a freak show when you get in really close, especially with the eyeballs and tongues.