“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.

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.

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?

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.

I found this little cutie on my walk home and I'm sure she's done flying for her time. I gave her some sugar water and let her rest in my pot.

Found this gorgeous lady on the ground yesterday, she's been enjoying sleeping in my arm hairs to warm up, climbing into flowers for a nap, and explorin. Looks like her wings didn't grow right, one is crunched together and the other looks like it didn't unfurl correctly.

We're in a 4a zone - wondering if she's a black tailed/orange rumpled bumblebee?

She's super cute when she gives herself little cat baths💛 my heart can hardly handle it. ~ that is all, thank yoooou

Bumblebee Feeding on a Flower

(Probably) gal drank for like 10min straight, i actually had to add more water because she drank it down to the honey. Yes i know i should have used sugar to mix with water, but i dont have any sugar here rn, this was the only thing i had on hand.

When she was done she eagerly climbed on my finger again and i took her to the window, where she licked my hand for salt a few more minutes, cleaned herself, and then got knocked off by a gust of wind. She can and did fly, i can only hope she remembered during a 3 story fall. 😭

Earlier post: https://www.reddit.com/r/bees/comments/1w39exm/white_tailed_bumblebee_i_found_weak_on_the_ground/

I also have a video, but reddit does NOT accept the standard mp4 video format a Samsung phone records in it seems, I have to find a way later to upload it.

Chonker instantly climbed on my finger and stayed calm while walking around on my hand all the way till home where I gave it some water with a bit of honey. It was so cute I almost couldn't contain myself.