Bee high five! Bombus impatiens queen on a sunflower last month in Connecticut.
Macro Insects by Omid Golzar
That first ones eyes… oh my!~
Oh wow. I don’t even know what kind of bee the first one is… Second one is clearly a Bombus, however. Lovely photos!
No GPS Needed: Bumblebees Find Their Own Flight Paths
by Virginia Morell
Bumblebees foraging in flowers for nectar are like salesmen traveling between towns: Both seek the optimal route to minimize their travel costs. Mathematicians call this the “traveling salesman problem,” in which scientists try to calculate the shortest possible route given a theoretical arrangement of cities.
Bumblebees, however, take the brute-force approach: For them, it’s simply a matter of experience, plus trial and error, scientists report in the current issue of PLoS Biology. The study, the first to track the movements of bumblebees in the field, also suggests that bumblebees aren’t using cognitive maps—mental recreations of their environments—as some scientists have suggested, but rather are learning and remembering the distances and directions that need to be flown to find their way from nest to field to home again…
(read more: Science NOW) (image: Andrew Martin)
Look at this handsome little gentleman! So dapper.
I miss all the lovely Western Pyrobombus! Just look at that red fur and the matching pollen pants! (And, as always, fantastic photo)
(Source: textless)
bugbrained: Bumble bee by Bearseye, on Flickr
Bumble Bee by Adrian Russen on Flickr.
More Bombus (bumblebees) and their beenises (bee penises!)!
