The bumblebee's tongue

On a cold grey miserable day last week I found two bumblebees in the greenhouse.  At first I thought they were dead but when I picked them up there were signs of life.  I gave each of them a drop of honey on a plant label and they were soon moving around.  While they were drinking I was able to take a few photos to show the details of the bumblebee's tongue.

The first was an Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) carrying white pollen.  The proboscis in this bee is relatively short by bumblebee standards.  It is composed of a stiff tube formed by two mandibles and two more flexible palps, the tips of which you can see here.

In this photo the mandibles are separated and the inner flexible tongue is in the honey.

The second bee was a Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum).  It shows nicely the long flexible brush-tipped tongue, usually used for sucking up nectar but just as good for honey in an emergency.

Today I found another Common Carder Bee carrying white and blue pollen.  I reckon to rescue several bees a day from the greenhouse - mostly bumblebees and honey bees - but they rarely need resuscitating with honey.

The length of the proboscis varies between species, one of the longest being in the garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum).

The proboscis is normally folded under the bee in flight, as shown here.

The honey bee's tongue is very similar to that of the bumblebee but I believe solitary bees' tongues are a bit different.