TOO COLD TO WORK
With the weather so cold - high 50s (f), I was amazed to see six bumblebees diligently gathering every last bit of nectar from these tiny flower heads. They were too cold to fly from flower to flower – almost catatonic, so instead they slowly crawled along. One actually dropped off its flower but caught itself on a leaf. Then, only after being unsuccessful at climbing back, and after a couple false starts, it finally managed to fly. Evidently that generated some body heat because that one bee then flew from flower to flower – the only one.
The face-front angle of this bumblebee clearly shows its proboscis. Also, I hadn’t ever noticed the yellow ‘things’ on each side of a bee’s mouth before - online a diagram of bees’ anatomy says they are mandibles. These seemed to continuously pulse back & forth (although I couldn’t guess their purpose because it wasn’t biting/chewing anything).
This was a very grey, dull day – unlike the clear blue sky of yesterday. The lighting wasn’t good for pictures, but this will do for today.
- 6
- 0
- Nikon COOLPIX P510
- 1/33
- f/3.0
- 4mm
- 100
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