Pollen and Larva: Part II

Worker with Alfalfa pollen in her pollen baskets.

So we're going to revist a couple of older topics with some good pictures, and then there's a new and fun topic at the end, but no skipping ahead!  Hive number 2 is still doing very well. The workers have drawn some comb in the upper hive body, and the queen has made her way up and laid eggs there as well.  The foragers were out in force today, even though we've been lacking rain for over a week now and it's getting very dry.  They were bringing in the same pollen as they were before (which I believe was Pear), and they are now bringing in another kind, which, thanks to the handy Pollen Source chart, I believe is from Alfalfa.

Worker with Pear Pollen in her pollen baskets.

While these are certainly not the only kinds of pollen they are collecting, it definitely doesn't surprise me that they are bringing in a lot of alfalfa, considering how many fields around here are full of it.  I still haven't been able to decide where the pear trees are, but they seem to have found it.  Additionally, I've seen lots of bees up in our yard on the white ball clover, and tonight I saw one in the garden, buzzing around looking for something flowering.  Unfortunately, that's a losing battle in our garden right now.



As we work our way over to hive #1, we get to revisit another old topic, but with some fantastic pictures as we look at the stages of development for the eggs and larva of bees. 

This picture gives a good view of the shared space between brood and pollen.  The pollen is kept near the brood to be convenient for feeding the developing young.  These nurse bees are working their way around tending to the young.  I was unable to get a picture of them sticking their heads down into the cells with the young and tending to them, because they work their way through pretty darn quickly.  When there's 1500-2000 new eggs a day, there is a lot of running around to do in order to make sure that all of the young are tended.  The picture below gives a blown up image of the various stages of young, numbered from 1 (youngest) to 5(oldest).

As you can see, the first circle is a tiny egg that looks like a miniature grain of rice.  It stays this way for the first 2-3 days, while it is growing into number two, a tiny little larva.  From there, the next 6-7 days grow it into a larger larva (numbers 3-4), and finally into one that fills almost the entire cell (number 5).  Around day nine, worker bees will cap the larva where it will stay for the next 8-12 days, when it will emerge as a worker ready to help the hive.

Our final picture covers one of my favorite facets of colony life: the guard bees.  At the entrance to the hive are many guard bees, who inspect every critter attempting to gain access to the hive.  Whether it is another bee or something else, from a spider to a mouse to a skunk, or anything else.  Obviously, with anything other than a bee, it's a pretty easy job.  The guards see a spider coming in and release their alarm pheremones, alerting the colony to the danger and mobilizing them to fight off the threat.  This is why the first thing one does when preparing to open the hive is smoke the entrance.  This masks the pheremones of the guard bees.  With other bees, however the guard bees check the pheremones.  If the bee belongs to the hive, it may come in and do whatever it needs to do.  If the bee belongs to another hive (and this is my favorite part), the guards will either mobilize the hive with their pheremones, or accept a bribe, if one is in the offing.  Bees from other colonies will sometimes offer a bribe of pollen to the guards, at which point they can come in, grab some honey, and leave again.  The picture below shows a guard bee (far right) checking the pheremones of a returning forager before allowing her into the hive, while another bee is coming in right behind her.  This guard bee inspected dozens of bees while I watched, a very quick process of face-to-face interaction, moving efficently on to the next bee as quickly as possible.