When you're a honey bee and you're packing pollen and approaching your landing--an artichoke thistle--it's a good idea to clean your proboscis (tongue) first. Caught in flight: a honey bee doing a little grooming. This one hovered like a syrphid fly or flower fly, perhaps waiting for the bee below her to move a bit as a few seconds lapsed. "A long tongue (proboscis--pronounced pro-BAH-sis) is used to suck nectar from flowers," Explains Norman Gary, UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology,...
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