Bees taking up the salt that has precipitated out of my pool water.
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The bees have been all over this bush, with it’s tiny flowers. It wasn’t until I took a macro shot that I could see why.
And the same bush with a bee for scale. Who would have thought such tiny flowers could provide so much sticky wet nectar? Amazing! I’m pretty sure the orange pollen was collected from the banksias.
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Wow, well done, that’s beautiful. All the snow bushes around me are heavily in blossom at the moment with beautiful displays. But not a solitary insect to be seen on them. They have tiny flowers but nothing is interested in them.
Bees tend to stick to one type of flower, that way the pollen is spread to the correct species.
Beautiful Pictures. What is the bush?
Thanks @JeffH. I’m not familiar with the snow bush, will look it up.
I’m not sure what the bush is @Valli, I’m pretty sure it is native to this area (mid-west WA), there are two of them on our block and we didn’t plant them. After seeing the bees all over them both though I’ll be trying to find out. And working out how to propagate it too. There seems to be way too many bees with huge sacks of orange pollen for it to all have come from those two plants. Unless of course there are more of the same in the area that I don’t know about, which is possible. There are a lot of banksias flowering right now in the area.
Hi JDub, there’s quite a few around but this year the one in our back yard is as good as the best ones around. They are also know as ‘Snow in Kilimanjero’, ‘Little Christmas Flower’, ‘Snowflake Bush’ or ‘Pascuita’. I just read that I have to be careful pruning it because the sap is poisonous, even on the skin it causes blisters.
@Jaydub
Lovely shot.
Bees here are all over the holly and cotoneaster which have equally small flowers.
In late summer they get bright orange pollen from the tiny tiny asparagus flowers and then don’t forget Ivy which, though a slightly larger flower, is a hugely important late nectar source.
Maybe that poisonous sap has something to do with the insects not being interested in them Jeff. They certainly have a lot of flowers on each bush, wow!
Thanks @Dee. We’re just coming into winter over here, although tourists keep telling me our winter is much the same as your summer 
Yes, that could be the case Jay, I had a smell & there was no perfume at all on them. It looks like their strategy to survive doesn’t include insects.
Looks to me like an olive -
https://www.google.com/search?q=oleaceae&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
Beautiful photo 
Hi @Eva. I can see what you mean. The photo is deceiving though, it’s definitely not an olive. This is an open, vase-shaped shrub, about 2 m high and 1-2 m wide. The leaves are about bee size or smaller, and the flowers tiny, barely noticeable unless you look closely. Maybe the perspective is better in this shot.
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I took and then posted the last photos about 4 days ago.
these show fluid being deposited and several of the cells
frame to the right cell, cell on right, third from bottom. . This is the one that has the most fluid in it buy counted tanner 12 others but I can see works started. It happens very fast, I looked in the high very closely this morning and Did not see this deposit
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For you Ohio beekeepers there is a bee photography contest at the Ohio State Fair
For Photography Competition:
www.ohiostatefair.com
Competitions on the top line
Arts from the drop down
Creative Arts from the next drop down
Arts, Craft & Fashion from the final drop down
Information Packet
Read The Arts Policies and Procedures
Print pages 0, 1, 2, 3, 12, and 13 of the book. Division 4209 is the Ohio State Beekeepers Association Photography Division. Class 4 is Adult Honey Bee; Class 10 is Youth Honey Bee. These class numbers are needed for the online registration. $10 to register, $1.00 per class entered.
Enter and pay online can be reached from the bottom of the page or on the front page of Arts, Craft & Fashion.
Deadline for entering is June 20, 2016.
Whoah! thats a crazy amount of bees! Where is this? 
It’s a hard life being a bee - this poor girl will soon not be able to fly
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Busy Bumble Bee
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Nice pollen pants! Very conquistadora
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None of my bees/girls are coming back with this much pollen on their hind legs. Is that an indication that they’re having to forage too far and there is a pollen shortage in my area?
I guess there could be a slight dearth of pollen right now where you are, @Martydallas…but Valli’s pic is of a bumble bee, so I bet they have bigger pollen baskets/capacity than honey bees do. Also they forage in some same, some different flowers so maybe more pollen can be collected at times. Betcha different honey bee types have variations too - @adagna were you the one who noted this in your hive? Prob googlable anyway…
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