Lemon and Lime

I can't pretend this was anything but a lucky shot - it's only a phone snap, but the light was just right, the focus sorted itself out and it includes a lot of details that are hard to see by eye

I took it because of the green granule in the centre. That is pollen, attached to the tibia of the right hind leg of that bee; she has a similar one on the left hind leg, that you can just make out through her transparent wings. The bee disappearing out of frame on the right has a similar yellow granule. Yellow pollen is common, green is much more unusual - especially this vibrant light green, spotted by Mrs M. This very strong colony was bringing in pollen at a breakneck pace, but this is the sole individual we saw with this green haul. It could be from a pear tree, or maybe Aubrieta. She is a bee who charts her own course

You can see in the picture that all the bees are covered - head to stinger - in fine hairs. At a microscopic level, they even have hairs on their eyes. The hairs have a small electrostatic charge on them. When a bee lands on a flower, the charge attracts pollen grains - just as balloons stick to the ceiling - and the bee is soon coated in fine dust. She can use her legs to comb the grains from the hairs and concentrate it on this area of her back legs (the 'pollen basket' or corbicula). She moistens the pollen with a little nectar so that it creates a doughy ball (aporopriately called 'bee bread') on this shiny indentation in her leg, anchored by a fringe of hairs to keep it secure. Once carried to the hive, it is stored in cells in the comb - tamped down with many others - until it is needed for feeding larvae

The delicate texture of the wings is visible, as its the fact that each bee has two pairs of wings, stacked on top of each other when they are in the hive like this (on several you can see the smaller hind-wing through the fore-wing on top). When flying, they are positioned one in front of the other, and the back of the fore-wing hooks on to the front of the hind wing, like velcro, to create a de facto single wing pair for more rapid flight

The light has also caught a couple of antennae and even shows that these are segmented. The antennae are highly sensitive sense organs, enabling bees to detect minute quantities of chemicals in the air. When bees meet their first contact is always by touching antennae, enabling them to "smell" who they are dealing with, and distinguish friend from foe

I have scoured in vain for evidence of the three 'occuli' - light-sensitive 'eyes' that sit in a triangular formation on top of a bee's head, between the two large compound eyes. She uses these to help her detect the horizon and maintain level flight, but I can't see any with certainty. A lucky shot, but not that lucky

So, a little bit of natural history but also, I thought, an appropriate image for International Workers' Day