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| Trick photo! This is a newly emerged dorsata worker on a florea nest. The dorsata was dipped in honey before introduced so workers were licking her, making her looking like a queen! The next day the worker was still in the nest, seemly being accepted by their much smaller cousins.* Viewed: 3861 times. |
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| The queen and her retinue of a florea colony. Note the bee with '77' on her, which I tagged the night before. Because workers form a few layers of curtains, one has to comb through them to find the queen. This one took us about 20 min to find and I just got lucky to have this clear shot, because two seconds later she disappeared again. Both florea and dorsata queens can fly without any preparation. European and Asian honey bee queens would need to be starved for 2-3 days before they can fly because they are too fat when laying eggs.* Viewed: 3661 times. |
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| A closeup of workers on a florea nest. Workers form curtains (shingled together) similar to the giant honey bees. * Viewed: 2880 times. |
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| A mature florea nest, about 1 ft across. Honey is stored in a rather cylinderic column near the top. Worker brood is solid in the center, separated by a few rows of pollen cells from the much larger drone cells on the outer rim. Notice there are two queen cells hanging down.* Viewed: 4641 times. |
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| The same nest held by Zachary. Photo by Darong Yang.* Viewed: 2433 times. |
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| A relatively new nest of florea. Some people harvested this colony's old comb about 2 weeks ago, and found their new nest again, this time only about 6 inchs across. Brood in the center are only just beginning to be sealed. Viewed: 3329 times. |
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| A closeup of a florea comb. A few rows of pollen are between the brood area and honey below. The honey storage is probably temporary -- the large cells are drone cells and will be used for rearing drones. Viewed: 2892 times. |
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| The same nest, showing the top. The honey storing area wrapps around the twig, giving it a lot of strength. Notice the cell orientations have to change all the time to accomplish this.* Viewed: 2318 times. |
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| A florea worker trying to sting my finger. The pain is much less compared to the European bees. Most of the time they have trouble getting through my thick skin.* Viewed: 2888 times. |
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| An Apis andreniformis worker on my fingers. Notice she is totally black, not reddish as Apis florea.* Viewed: 2546 times. |
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Album: Bees @ Home 
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