Honey bees are busy right now collecting nectar and pollen to get them through the winter.  They carry nectar to the hive by swallowing it.  They carry the pollen in sacs on their legs.

According to Wikipedia, the bee’s pollen basket or corbicula is “a polished cavity surrounded by a fringe of hairs.”  Each bee grooms the pollen off her body and stores it in her pollen baskets. Here’s how:

A honey bee moistens its forelegs with its protruding tongue and brushes the pollen that has collected on its head, body and forward appendages to the hind legs. The pollen is transferred to the pollen comb on the hind legs and then combed, pressed, compacted, and transferred to the corbicula on the outside surface of the tibia of the hind legs.

This honeybee’s pollen basket is so big that it looks like she’s wearing orange knickers.

(photo by Kate St. John)

p.s. for my British readers:  The word “knickers” in the U.S. is short for “knickerbockers,” the baggy trousers tight at the knee formerly worn by golfers.