Hey everyone! Been a long time, but took a picture of this bee and thought of you guys right away. This honeybee was the only honeybee on a huge patch of phacelia that only the bumbles seemed to have tripped over. Anyway, she was the only honey there, and she wasn't moving very much. I thought it odd at the time, but when I got the picture onto my computer and blown up, I noticed her tongue is all hanging out, but it doesn't look like she's consuming anything.
Hate to jump to the fact that she might have hit a source sprayed with something nasty, but it occurs to me that I don't see the results of bees dying of old age either. When a bee dies of natural causes, will its tongue hang out like this? What do you think?
(http://s23.postimg.org/b3k2pj7pj/sick_bee_crop.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/b3k2pj7pj/)
Have never looked that closely at the bees that die on the flowers, but I will look now.