Having a special function is possible because some legs have added features which assist the bee in different ways. In this way, the leg of a bee is adapted to perform many tasks, quite apart from the obvious of walking or scurrying about. Here are some of the ways in which the legs of bees perform different tasks. Some of these tasks may surprise you! The hind legs on most female bee species are specially adapted to collect and transport pollen from the flower back to the nest or hive.
Cuckoo bee species do not gather pollen, rather they rely on pollen supplied by their target host. Bees that gather pollen on their hind legs have special features or adaptations in the form of either:. Here is an image of a painted mining bee. This bee collects the pollen in the floccus of each leg.
Again, the rear legs are visibly full of pollen, which has a more powdery appearance in this case. Believe it or not, bees have taste buds on their front feet - this has certainly been proven to be the case with honey bees. You can read more about this topic on the page how do bees taste. Scientists have proven that - certainly in the case of honey bees, sound vibrations are picked up by organs in the legs, called subgenual organs.
Read more about this on the page Do Bees Have Ears. Grooming as a way of keeping clean, is very, very important for bees, and indeed other insects. Bees are exposed to all kinds of micro-organisms and bacteria in the soil that could build up and hamper the bee, for example, either by causing infections or by clogging up the hairs that are so important for things like carrying pollen and keeping warm.
Bees even have special adaptations on their feet to help them keep spic and span. The female bee uses these to gather the pollen that sticks to her hair and body together into one mass which she then stores in her pollen baskets. Workers and queens have two pollen baskets, one each on the outside surface of each hind leg. The pollen basket is easy to spot; when it is empty it is a large, flat shiny area with spiky hairs around the edge, and when it is full it contains pollen which is often yellow, orange or red.
The leg above was taken from a dead terrestris queen. The pollen basket, or corbicula, is seen at an angle, so it is actually wider than shown. The claws , coxa , trochanter and femur are fairly unspecialised, and typical of those found in many insects. The outside of the tibia is concave, hairless and shiny when empty. It is bordered by a fringe of hairs, some of them are long and stiff. This forms the pollen basket or corbicula. Pollen is pressed on to the the pollen basket when it has been collected by the combs and brushes on the inside of the legs see the drawings and photograph below.
There are five segments to the tarsus. They range in size from tiny to much larger than a honeybee and have 4 wings, two on each side of the body. The two wings are hooked together, so the wings move in unison while flying. Most bee species have relatively long elbow-shaped antennae. If you see antennae that are short and stubby or club-shaped, you are not looking at a bee. Bumble bees are one group of native bees. The body of a bumble bee generally has lots of black hair with contrasting bands of yellow, red, or white.
Different species have different color patterns. Bumble bees are as large as or larger than honeybees. Female honeybee and bumble bee workers both have pollen baskets on their hind legs, which they use to carry the pollen they collect. A pollen basket is a shallow depression in the leg surrounded by a fringe of long hairs. Workers and males are similar in size, but queens are much larger. Both queens and workers have stingers, but they are not aggressive and rarely sting.
Males don't have stingers. Their nests are generally found in tree cavities or abandoned rodent burrows, but they can sometimes be found in woodpiles, hay bales, old bird nests or the like. Bumble bee nests are smaller than honeybee colonies and not as highly organized. A bumble bee nest may contain about bumble bees, while a honeybee colony can have as many as 50, bees.
Bumble bees don't make honey, but their nests do contain a nectar pot and extra pollen stores to feed the queen and larvae. While a honeybee colony can be viable for a decade, a bumble bee nest lasts for only a year.
Each queen will begin a new colony. First, she forages for both nectar and pollen to feed herself. Once she finds a suitable nesting site, she begins laying eggs fertilized with sperm stored from the previous summer. These fertilized eggs will become female workers. The queen continues foraging for pollen to feed to the larvae after hatching. When the workers become adults, they take over foraging for nectar and pollen. The queen remains in the nest to lay more eggs as the colony grows and develops.
In late summer,some of the fertilized eggs are fed more frequently and longer than usual. These develop into new queens. The queen also lays some unfertilized eggs that will develop into male bees.
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