Spring is sprung

At last, after weeks of cold wet and windy weather, the sun came out, the temperature crept into double figures (°C) and the bees came out to celebrate.  I think of it as the first day of spring when they come out to forage on the snowdrops and there were hundreds taking advantage of the sunshine.  They were collecting nectar as well as pollen and the scent amongst the flowers was heavenly.

A bee can spend a long time on each flower, sometimes more than a minute.

A lot of time is spent grooming to collect the pollen in the corbiculae (pollen baskets) on her hind legs.  This photo shows well the pollen brushes on the inside of the back legs which the bee scrapes against each other to move the pollen ready to squeeze into the pollen baskets.

These photos show a bee rubbing the brushes against each other.

The grooming carries on in the short flights between flowers.

This bee is cleaning her proboscis with her front legs while flying.

Here's another bee hovering just beside a snowdrop.

The honey bees were also foraging elsewhere.  I could see them high in the cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) flowers in the hedge and this one was on winter clematis.

Then back on the snowdrops I saw my first bumblebee of the season.  I had only a fleeting view but think it is a buff-tailed queen (Bombus terrestris) although it has a curious gap in its yellow belt.

Moments later I saw a tree bumblebee queen (Bombus hypnorum). 

So now it really must be spring.  Here's hoping for more warm sunny days to get the season off to a good start.

Snowdrops

The snowdrops in my tiny patch of woodland have been out for at least a couple of weeks but I have yet to see a bee visiting them.  A few bees have ventured out and returned to the hives with pollen but most are staying inside in the warm.  I hope the weather improves soon otherwise the bees may miss out on the snowdrops altogether this year.

 (Click for a larger image)

Honey bees on snowdrops

Today was sunny with a temperature of almost 10 degrees and the wind speed dropped almost into single figures so it was the best day of the year so far for the bees.  Even though it was cooler than they would like they came out to forage in numbers for the first time this year.

The bees were collecting pollen and nectar.  Snowdrop pollen is orange and some of the pollen baskets were loaded. The bees spend a lot of time grooming the pollen and can hang on to a flower with one leg while doing so.  They seem to clean their tongues with their front legs in flight after leaving a flower, as shown in the next two photos.

There are quite a lot of snowdrops in the garden - probably covering about 100 sq metres in the wood - and with the cold windy weather we have had all year so far I was worried the flowers would be over before the bees got out to them.