Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: AliciaH on May 30, 2013, 10:13:20 PM

Title: What's up with this bee?
Post by: AliciaH on May 30, 2013, 10:13:20 PM
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/)
Title: Re: What's up with this bee?
Post by: annette on June 04, 2013, 12:40:25 AM
Have never looked that closely at the bees that die on the flowers, but I will look now.