Honey Bees

Check out that pollen basket!

As we celebrate our two week long #VirtualStewardshipDay, do you know who else is a steward of pollination (Hint...Hint...they are known to be pollinators)? HONEY BEES or more specific, Honey Worker Bees! These little insects can be found near any bright-colored plants. Their job is to collect nectar and pollen from flowers. They gather pollen and place on their hind legs. This collection is called a pollen basket or the scientific term corbicula.

As they forage from flower to flower, pollen is deposited onto the new flower, allowing that flower to reproduce. Not only does the worker bees depend on the flowers, but the flowers also depend on them! Without working honey bees, there would not be as many diverse flowers.

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Worker bees also collect nectar to create that delicious honey that we all love. When they collect nectar, they will use their tiny tongue and drink the nectar from the flower into their honey stomach. They will not return to the hive until that stomach is full. Once they are ready to return to the hive, they have to spit up the nectar and pack it with the remaining pollen into a single honeycomb. Now they sit and wait….and voilà ...honey! For 1lb of honey, it will take 10,000 bees, traveling 75,000 miles to about 8,000,000 flowers - this is a team effort! 

​Working as a team requires communication. Now, bees cannot talk to each other like humans, but they can dance or waggle! When a worker bee dances/waggles, they waggle in a figure-eight formation, indicating which direction to go for more food. 

Blue Grape Hyacinth

To help support #VirtualStewardshipDay, you can plant flowers such as Phlox, Mint, Sage, or Lavender. One of the regions with the most plant diversity is along the river corridor. Head down to the South Platte and see if you can find any honey bees there!

Sources:

• https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/plant-a-bee-garden/
  
• https://bees.techno-science.ca/english/bees/pollination/default.php
  
• https://animals.net/honey-bee/
  
• https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/honey-bees-fill-saddlebags-pollen-here-s-how-they-keep-them-gripped-tight
  
• https://beesneeds.colorado.edu/introtonativebees.html
  
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bee_waggle_dance.png