Geoff Duncan

The cherry trees are doing their springtime thing of producing tight pompoms of flowers the size of softballs, so I thought I'd try to get a snapshot of them this year. Instead, I was distracted by the honeybees visiting the cherry blossoms:

I've always been fascinated by the way honeybees haul around pollen by packing it onto their back legs—do they have little sacs to store the material? Do they sort of chew it into a mushy glob and just smoosh it on? How does that work anyway? I don't really know, but a couple things are obvious: honeybees get pollen all over themselves when they visit flowers:

…and however they pack the pollen on, it doesn't go all the way around their back legs:

…although I still swear the pollen clumps look like the floaties kids wear in swimming pools. And, wouldn't you know, I seem to be Google's top hit for the phrase "bee floaties!"

PS: Yes, still allergic to bees. Yes, still getting way too close to lots of them with a camera. Yes, still stupid.