Smiling bumblebee with a yellow fro

“Hey, baby. Your stamen or mine?” *winkwink*

i dunno, i think he looks kinda angry and yelly.
do luv the yellow fro, howe’er.

Smiling? He looks like he’s frowning and about to wreck havoc.

We all need to bee nice to bees. They are having a very bad time right now with Hive Collapse, and we should encourage them in our gardens, and patches/containers. I’m planting a bee and butterfly garden at a friend’s home today.

I wanted to keep bees, but I was told that my neighbors would be annoyed (no pun there, too serious). Y
BEES get a big YaY from me! YaY bees! Bzzzz-don’t swat them,appreciate them, please!

I love bees! And although I know it’s a she, it totally reminds me of a guy. Maybe from ‘Night at the Roxbury’ – he’s wearing shades indoors, and has that big smile, and floofy hair. Meg’s caption was spot-on.

No, worker bees are female. The males are drones, whose only purpose is to mate with the queen, then die.

GOB: “BEEEES!”
Lindsay: “No, BEADS!”

lol… wow. This is ironic as heck. I was looking at the list of categories yesterday and thought to myself, “Well, they have birds on here. I wonder if they’ll ever have bees. …Nah. Not likely.” =Þ You have officially proven me wrong.

It seems that it depends on what species of bee it is, whether the females or the males are the pollen-gatherers:

“Cleptoparasitic bees, commonly called “cuckoo bees” because their behavior is similar to cuckoo birds, occur in several bee families, though the name is technically best applied to the apid subfamily Nomadinae. Females of these bees lack pollen collecting structures (the scopa) and do not construct their own nests.” They steal other bees’ nests, referred to as the “host bee.”

brinnann, but the males in that species (if I know my haplodiploidy) are still only around for mating purposes. That description, if I’m reading it right, says that *nobody* goes around collecting pollen. The females get their protein by thievery.

Yep, that’s how the ants and bees work: males pretty much mate and die.

Before people wish for the “short but sweet” life of a drone, I believe (if I remember high school bio correctly) the drones are dragged out of the hive and left to die after doing their business with the queen. Nice.

This bee looks a bit psycho.

OK, now, I have to weigh in on the bee education conversaiton — *adjusts professorial glasses on nose* — everything people have written about drones, queens, and worker bees, is absolutely correct — for HONEY bees. The bee in this picture is, however, a bumblebee, which usually runs around living a solitary life (I think). Back in my back-to-the-land days, I raised honey bees. But not bumblebees. We should check up about bumblebees before making pronouncements about their domestic lives. I would not be surprised, though, to learn that, as with most insects, the males do not fare well for long.

This bee kinda has the look of the Village Idiot about him/her. Or, I guess, Hive Idiot.

When I look at that bee, all I can see is Dennis Rodman.
http://www.themessenjah.net/nba2k8/rodmanlink.jpg

So cute and so smilinks, but way to hard to snorgle!!

@Lilly:
“I like my coffee like I like my women. Covered in BEEEEEEEES!!”

@debG
*jealous grumbles*

Bumble bees, like honey bees, live in hives. A bumble bee hive is started in the spring by a queen, who lays eggs and raises female workers. Male eggs are laid later in the season; males are for mating and don’t collect pollen. In other, solitary bee species (carpenter bees, for example; things that don’t live in hives and so don’t have worker bees) both females and males are out and about collecting pollen to support themselves. So this bee, being a bumble bee (or if you want to use the awesome genus name, Bombus) and a pollen collector, is female.

Cute bee!! Yes, I support the poor bees, too. Thanks to all the bee-folks who are helping them!!!

(Just long as they stay away from me—beeg chicken when it comes to bees!!!)

(few care but needed to say->) yay for the people that know not all bees are honeybees. there are many different genera, never mind species. in my yard i see everything from solitary bees to hive bees and tiny bees to huge carpenter bees. i have bees that live in the ground, live in stems, and tunnel into wood. things are different with non-honey bees. for example, the male carpenter bee defends his turf and acts fairly pugnacious but is harmless. and i imagine nonsocial bee males prolly visit flowers for nectar, tho they prolly don’t gather honey.

Anyone noticed that nobody has mentioned wanting to eat the bee?

theresa, reminds me of a song from my youth:

“i’m smushin’ up my baby bumblebee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me…”

anyone?

[Ohh, she wasn't proud of me... - Ed.]

look how tubby he is! i want to give him the tiniest of hugs!

NOT CUTE AT ALL. SCARY.

Meg, has anybody sent you any good pictures of Leafy Sea Dragons? Those are metaphorically fluffy. It could work! Thank you.

Looks like Buzzbob Bumblepants is wearing a pair of aviator goggles, doesn’t it?

Hey all you bee-peeps in Northern California, I recently visited a wonderful shop in Sebastepol called BeeKind, (of course), that features everything bees… jewelry to honey jars to candy to candles to everything you need for setting up your own hives. They have a cool website, too:
http://www.beekind.com/
i got a bumper sticker there that says “Give bees a chance”. Being a “B.”, myself, I am a huge bee-fan!
Check it out!

I’m scared!

*runs off to mommy*

Um… he kind of has a ronald mcdonald look to him… has anyone else noticed thees?

I’m pretty sure this little guy was in Stephen King’s movie The Mist.

Katrina, I want to do that! (…and not get stung , of course!)
I think it also qualifies as Interspecies Snorgling. You dad sounds like a very enlightened bee-ing.