gavin

March in the orchard

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by
gavin
, 11-03-2012 at 11:52 PM (4783 Views)
Bringing home the willow pollen.



In this one just back from the willow you can clearly see the combs on the hind legs used to press and squeeze the moistened pollen through into the pollen baskets. Come to think of it, that doesn't look like willow. Not dusty enough.



On their way out the door they give their antennae a quick wipe before they set off - all in a fraction of a second.



One stopped by on my thumb for a rest.



The mouseguard is little impedient to bringing home the pollen. More like willow - big pollen loads and bees dusted underneath.



Some of the colonies are really powerful. This one is right across the brood box and is close to using up its fondant. However spring is in the air and this one should be OK now.



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Updated 12-03-2012 at 08:40 AM by gavin

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  1. Jon's Avatar
    Nice looking bees. Loads of pollen being stored at the moment - mostly willow I imagine.
  2. gavin's Avatar
    I'd estimate that it was 80% willow coming in today here with some fruit tree and maybe other stuff. They end up dusted in willow pollen if they're working it and often have some on the face.
  3. Jon's Avatar
    I noticed that. It's similar to the appearance when they are coated in oilseed rape pollen.
  4. Jon's Avatar
    Unless Scotland is completely overrun with vermin, I would have those mouse guards off. I actually failed to put any on this year apart from excluder strips on my apideas.
  5. gavin's Avatar
    There are quite a lot (not necessarily a football reference there). Yes, I would have taken the mouseguards off but I forgot to take some envelopes to collect some of the corpses on the floor so left them on. Maybe through the week.
  6. Bumble's Avatar
    Gavin, I'd like to ask a non-bee question about the top picture. Could you tell me what focusing you use please, because no matter how hard I try I never manage to capture a decent picture of bees in flight.
  7. gavin's Avatar
    Canon digital EOS camera, set the focussing to manual, focus at a distance I think is suitable (use a hand or point it at the hive roof), zoom lens on fairly wide-angle, hold it near the entrance looking along or up on a sunny day, and hit the button lots of times. Amongst the scores of pictures will be a few you like the look of - and for SBAi you can crop the image quite heavily to get it to the 800 pixel width I use for here. I lodge images on the SBAi server separately and link to them, but Photobucket and similar provide a service which works in the same way. For close-ups of stationary bees again I fix the focus and take a few shots moving the camera nearer and further. Usually the shots are useless!
  8. gavin's Avatar
    That one in the bottom picture had four frames of brood today and lots of bees - it should romp away in the coming weeks. It also had sealed drone brood so queen raising can start soon!