top of page

Bee Toes

Annie Webb

One of the girls was chilling on the windscreen of the truck and thought id take the opportunity to talk about bee toes because yes they exist and yes they are super cute.






First things first although we call them bee toes, technically they are tarsal claws but toes sound way cuter. Bee's toes have more than one purpose, you may have noticed bees are pretty good at clinging to most surfaces including glass, if you look closely in this picture you can see at the end of each leg are little hooks on either side of a pad. The two hooks on each foot allow them to cling to things such as comb, tree bark or each other (festooning), the pad in the middle basically acts as a sucker so they can walk across smooth surfaces such as glass. Bee toes also help the bees to be really efficient when foraging as they are covered in microscopic hairs that act like taste sensors, as soon as they land on a flower they can taste if there is any of the sweet goodness left or if they need to move onto the next flower. As we know bees are incredibly complex creatures, from taste sensor toes to pollen baskets, the anatomy of a bee is truly mind-blowing and that's just the legs never mind the body.



31 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


Follow

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
NZ Badge.png

©2020 by Annie Bea's Beekeeping. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page