Whatzit?

[webenda]

A woman mannequin's knee, wearing shoes or boots, Made of plastic?

Tony

No.

[webenda]

The proverbial bee's knee?

To an apiologist it is a highly admired thing. You can buy it in a healthfood store. Whatszit?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

A Murder Hornet's nose ?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The proverbial bee's knee?

To an apiologist it is a highly admired thing. You can buy it in a healthfood store. Whatszit?

Honey!

[webenda]

A Murder Hornet's nose ?

I know where you are coming from with that one but no.

[chuck]

pollen granules. They stick to the bee's "hairs" and are collected by bee keepers when the return to the hive in "pollen traps".



From a publication of the "Bee Keep Club"

Pollen is a significant part of the honey bee nutrition. It is the male reproductive part of flowering plants, made up of the genetic material and the nutrients needed for the development of a seed. The foraging bees collect pollen from the anthers or the male part of the flower. The pollen accumulates on the body and legs of the worker bees and is transferred from one flower to the other, thus facilitating cross-pollination.

Pollen collection is important for plants and is also beneficial to the honey bees since it is a part of their nutritional requirements. The nectar collected from flowers is usually a source of carbohydrates, whereas pollen is rich in sterols, amino acids, minerals, and fats/lipids. Nectar is used for feeding the adult bees but the developing larvae and young bees require pollen.

[webenda]

The proverbial bee's knee?

To an apiologist it is a highly admired thing. You can buy it in a healthfood store. Whatszit?

Honey!

No, not honey.

When a bee sucks up nectar from a flower it goes into their fore stomach. Back at the hive they regurgitate it out of their fore stomach. But unlike cattle, who also regurgitate what they ate from their fore stomach, bees to not chew the nector, they fan it with their wings to evaporate the water in it. Honey is just concentrated nector. Once concentrated, the bees store the honey in six sided cells they have built out with wax.

This whatzit is not honey. It is something bees carry on the outside of their bodies.

[webenda]

pollen granules. They stick to the bee's "hairs" and are collected by bee keepers when the return to the hive in "pollen traps".

Yes, pollen is correct.

The "hairs" you refer to are probably the scopa, a dense mass of elongated, often branched, hairs on the hind leg of some bees which are used in pollen transport.

Honey bees and bumblebees have a more highly-developed structure than the scopa: the corbicula, or pollen basket. A corbicula is a smooth cavity on the hind leg surrounded by a ring of hairs.

Bombus impatiens. The common Eastern Bumble Bee, photographed while searching for decrepit barns.


BUMBLE BEE PHOTO
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX85
Date and time: Thursday, June 10, 2021 12:17: PM
Exposure time: 1/400 second
Focal length: 30 mm
Aperature: f/5.6
ISO speed: 200
Location: Columbia, Kentucky

[MurphOnMillerAve]

My gosh, Chuck, you are a clever mind(!)
And , Wayne, you are a creative , interesting fellow.
Bravo, to both of you .

[Rufus T. Firefly]

When a bee sucks up nectar from a flower it goes into their fore stomach. Back at the hive they regurgitate it out of their fore stomach. But unlike cattle, who also regurgitate what they ate from their fore stomach, bees to not chew the nector, they fan it with their wings to evaporate the water in it. Honey is just concentrated nector. Once concentrated, the bees store the honey in six sided cells they have built out with wax.

This I knew - we used to keep bees up at the farm in Pa.

This whatzit is not honey. It is something bees carry on the outside of their bodies.

Ok, it's pre-honey....

[chuck]

To an apiologist it is a highly admired thing. You can buy it in a healthfood store. Whatszit?

Key clue from Wayne. An apiologist is a bee keeper. What does a bee keeper provide for sale that you would find in a health food store? Not honey. You can buy honey at places like the local farmers market to a giant Costco.

While most of us associate bee keepers as honey producers that is almost a side line to their primary function of providing fertilization services to crop producers that rely on bees to perform this function. The hives are trucked around to orchards and fields for a period of time for the bees to do their thing. The bees get to gorge on nectars which they turn into honey in the hive. In the process of nectar retrieval they move pollen within the flowers to fertilize the plants. A lot of excess pollen is carried back in the process. This pollen is a food source for the bees.

The excess pollen was originally collected by the keepers to support controlled experiments on hybridization. At some point someone figured out that you could sell the stuff as a dietary supplement. It has been anecdotally tied to all sorts of benefits with little in the way of clinical studies to back this stuff up. It is primarily protein but a hard to digest protein. It is a potential allergen and can be fatally so. While bee pollen is great/essential for bee’s I don’t know about its usefulness to humans.

[sleepmac]

WOW! The stuff I learn on this Forum! LOL Love it.

Dan Weinhold

[webenda]

This whatzit is not honey. It is something bees carry on the outside of their bodies.

Ok, it's pre-honey....

Like human sperm is pre-sweat for sweat bees?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Ok, it's pre-honey....

Like human sperm is pre-sweat for sweat bees?

[webenda]

Whatzit?