For the last week or two I observed bees entering and exiting the hive with a white spot or sometimes stripe on their thorax. Because they always fly in and out so fast I wondered at first if I was imagining it. Early on it seemed to be bees in just one hive, but as I watched day after day, it was all the hives and I was not imagining it. I did however start imagining what awful thing it might be that had caused this. A weird parasite attached to their thorax? Were my queens laying mutant bees? Had all their "fur" rubbed off and this was what was underneath?? (remember, I am a newbee. Been beekeeping for the big three months now!) So, I did some internet research and thanks to Honey Bee Suite (an excellent beekeeping site/blog), I found an answer for my little mysterious "ghost" bees. On his blog they had a great picture identifying exactly what I was seeing on my bees, pollen. The Jewelweed flower is where it was coming from. Within an eighth of a mile behind my hives is a pond and a muck field with ditches all around it. I took a small trek and found massive amounts of Jewelweed with honey bees, bumbles and even hummingbirds darting in and out throughout their flowers. When the honey bee enters the flower, pollen is rubbed across her head and thorax. When she grooms herself she cannot reach the pollen on her thorax, leaving the white stripe or hourglass figure that I was seeing.
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| Jewelweed flower, also known as Touch Me Not |
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| The Mother Load of Jewelweed |
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| Honeybee entering Jewelweed flower. See how the stamen will rub pollen right along the bee's head and thorax? The bees have to go quite deep into the flower to get the nectar. |
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| Going in. |
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| Check out the honey bee in the center of the picture. See the white on it's head and thorax? I was laughing watching them fly in and out of the flowers, it was quite comical to see them come out with white all over their head and back. I was also relieved to know this white stripe was a good thing. Just bees being bees. |
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| Honey bee entering Jewelweed flower. |
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