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.