Honey Bees 8.25.13

I can see my hive from the screen room where I have my morning coffee.

This is the hive entrance  before the sun gets to it. They look like little soldiers all standing in a row. There are scouts going in and out. I guess this is the “guard”.

Once the sun hits the front of the hive there is more activity. More of them come out and start some serious cleaning.

This Jatropha bush has been blooming all summer. I had never seen a bee on it until a few days ago.

It was fun following this one around. She is gathering pollen.

You can see a nice drop of moisture hanging from the plant. Humidity is very high.

Most of the Cabbage Palms have already finished blooming. I expect they are gathering where ever they can find it.

Look at the size of the pollen sacs on her legs.

You wouldn’t think she could fly with all that pollen…but she wasn’t finished yet.

My old camera does not do good close ups….and when I crop them out they are a bit blurry.

Looking for more. She is flying away from me…that is her proboscis (tongue) you can see hanging down just forward of the pollen sacs.

The bees have been working  the Bottle Brush. It has been blooming off and on all summer, but it was pretty much ignored.

Now they are back. I can see 4 on this bloom that is still opening.

This Salvia has been blooming all summer but didn’t interest them until a few weeks ago.

This is another type of Salvia ….have never seen a bee on it.….but this little Skipper seems happy that it is here.

I never realized how cute they were until I took some pictures of them.

I’m glad I have such a diversity of plants. Guess I can use these to judge how much feed there is out there.. Nice to  see them feeding closer to home. Unfortunately….it probably means these plants are not their favorites or the easiest to work…or they’d be on them all summer.