Honeybee Feeding on a Sunflower

I noticed bees started to gather around the base of this pot earlier in the season but I thought they were just drinking the water that accumulated there. Lately there has been A LOT more bee activity with bees going in and out of the drainage holes on the bottom of the pot. The tomato plant is still healthy and has a number of tomatoes ripening on it. Any thoughts on what’s going on? Will the bees just eventually leave? Are they somehow building a hive in the pot?

“Big Daddy” Drone walking through! All them ladies notice too! 🤣 💙🇺🇸🐝

I found her 8 weeks ago in the middle of the road, I presumed she was a queen as she was absolutely huge. I’ve been providing flowers and water for her daily and she seemed to being doing pretty well until yesterday. The flowers definitely didn’t have pesticides on them as I made sure they were all from my own garden.

She was running around her enclosure all day, seemed very restless. She even fell into her water bowl once. She seemed to be feeding on the flowers endlessly without being satisfied. I took her outside for an hour and she fed then aswell.

I checked on her before I went to bed and she was still running around in her enclosure. This morning I sadly found her curled up, she looked as if she was sleeping but upon close inspection I found she had died with her tongue out.

I’m just hoping I haven’t done anything to cause this. Everyone that saw her thought she was a queen so I was hoping she would live a lot longer, even if she couldn’t fly.

I’m so upset, I miss her terribly. I just want to know why.

Feeding on Eucalyptus pachyphylla at our flower farm (and native pollinator haven) 120km NE of Dubbo NSW, Australia
The outer stamens are the boy part of the flower with the lady bit in the center. 4 bands blue bands are females, 5 bands of blue are the boys…

Warning: If the sounds of cicadas buzzing in the background isn't enough, a small yet very loud flock of geese fly overhead as two bee butts are settling in for the night.

Good night, sleepy bee butts.

A colony of roughly 10,000 bees was discovered inside a shed slated for demolition at Virginia’s historic Brandy Station battlefield. Local beekeeping families carefully removed the comb and relocated the colony to standard hive boxes on a nearby farm, protecting the bees while restoration work continued.