The honey bee and the unopen lemon blossom

Author Koh Lin ◦

The European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera for the more sciencey among us) are a common sight among flowering plants. At this time of year in Australia, the citrus trees certainly attract their share of attention. Many gardens in Central Australia have citrus tree (genus Citrus), even if it is a potted one such as I have (although actually it is more of a potted lemon shrub), where we can get the opportunity to observe the honey bee up close.

I was looking at the blossom on the lemon tree, where some were at different stages of flowering, from buds, to open flower and others having lost their petals and the lemon ovary just starting to swell.

Suddenly a honey bee flew onto the blossom I was looking at… lucky I had my trusty mobile phone and I quickly snapped a few photos. The bee’s legs were already laden with pollen, and it appeared to be just supping on the nectar, not that I could tell the difference.

I hung around watching the “buzzy honey bees”, looking for open blossoms… and they did not appear to be too fussy, even visiting a damaged citrus blossom…

Then I saw a honey bee stop on some unopen blossoms, I thought they would give them a miss, as there was no stamens and anthers on offer…

But no… the bee persisted. This was a first for me, as I have not seen this before, the honey bee was trying to prise apart the closed petals of the citrus flower to get at the treat inside…

Did persistence pay off… it was hard to tell… but this little honey bee certainly gave it a go…

The only other time I had heard of a behaviour that was similar, is referred to as the “Operculum lifting behaviour” of the Meroglossa impressifrons penetrata female on the flower of a Eucalyptus infera, which actually involved the removing of the operculum from a partially dehised bud.