Collecting Blue. Scilla bifolia, Alpine Squill, and Honey Bee, Apis mellifera, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Returning to Amsterdam under a chilly but absolutely Blue almost Azure Sky, I made for the Hortus Botanicus to battle the onslaught of jetlag...
Though air temperature wasn't much above 8 C., the Sun was pleasantly warm and there was little wind. It was the kind of weather to draw out bees hungry for protein.
Here on beautifully blue Alpine Squill, Scilla bifolia, is our European Honey Bee, Apis mellifera. She's gathering pollen, and you can see some bluely collected already in her corbicula. It's a bit early in the year for drones to be ready for 'marriage'. In Classical Times, a concoction of Alpine Squill was sometimes used to delay puberty in boys especially for the slave trade. Whether our bees do the same for drones by using this pollen... I don't know.
Collecting Blue. Scilla bifolia, Alpine Squill, and Honey Bee, Apis mellifera, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Returning to Amsterdam under a chilly but absolutely Blue almost Azure Sky, I made for the Hortus Botanicus to battle the onslaught of jetlag...
Though air temperature wasn't much above 8 C., the Sun was pleasantly warm and there was little wind. It was the kind of weather to draw out bees hungry for protein.
Here on beautifully blue Alpine Squill, Scilla bifolia, is our European Honey Bee, Apis mellifera. She's gathering pollen, and you can see some bluely collected already in her corbicula. It's a bit early in the year for drones to be ready for 'marriage'. In Classical Times, a concoction of Alpine Squill was sometimes used to delay puberty in boys especially for the slave trade. Whether our bees do the same for drones by using this pollen... I don't know.