Bees Carry Pollen On Legs

Female honey bees carry pollen in corbiculae or pollen baskets located on the bees back legs.

Bees carry pollen on legs. The corbiculae are made of tightly woven leg hairs. Because they are extremely fuzzy animals pollen sticks to them every time they visit flowers. Here a honey bee is gathering the bright red pollen of bottlebrush buckeye. They use the structure in harvesting pollen and carrying it to the nest or hive.

Below you can see a magnified image of a bumblebee claw. Bumble bees and honey bees have a very interesting system for storing pollen which begins with pollen collection. When empty the pollen baskets are invisible. Doing so it pushes the pollen down to the stiff hair of its abdomen and legs.

As a result the bee is completely covered with pollen. So to be more efficient female bees have a special apparatus for holding and transporting pollen. Once back at the hive the workers stuff the pollen into an awaiting cell. Different bees have different ways of carrying pollen back to the hive.

Also known as pollen baskets these structures can be found on the back legs of worker bees. A single bee can carry about half her own body weight in pollen. It sticks to their antennae their legs their faces their bodies. Note that the male has a hairy matte finish to his legs.

Unlike nectar carrying bees pollen carrying bees have to off load it themselves. The color of the pollen in a bee s baskets varies from flower to flower. In addition to depositing the pellets from their sacks they may also groom away any pollen. Bees don t just transport pollen between plants they also bring balls of it back to the hive for food.

Most bees collect just pollen or just nectar on any trip but a few carry both at the same time. These pollen pellets which also include nectar and can account for 30 of a bee s weight. Other species of bees have scopae instead. They become one giant pollen magnet.

Hence it uses its legs for wiping the pollen off of the body. After the bee visits a flower she begins grooming herself and brushes pollen gathered on her body down toward her hind legs and packs the pollen into. The pollen is stuffed into hairy receptacles on their hind legs called corbiculae. As soon as the bee gets to the hive it unloads the pollen.

This region is located on the tibia of the hind legs and consists of hairs surrounding a concave region. Looking at the legs is often one of the easiest ways to tell the sex of a bumblebee. The pollen basket or corbicula plural corbiculae is part of the tibia on the hind legs of certain species of bees. Honey bees have structures called corbiculae to collect and transport pollen.