The Honey Bee, is any bee member of the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of colonial nests from wax. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees.

Honey Bees use the nectar collected to create our favourite sweet treat – honey! When carrying the nectar back to the hive, their bodies break sown the complex sucrose of the nectar into two simple sugars, fructose and glucose. Tucking it neatly into the honeycomb cell, the bees will then beat their wings furiously over the top of this syrupy sweet liquid to fan out the moisture and thicken the substance. When it is complete, the bees will cap that cell with beeswax, sealing the honey for consumption later on.

Honey Bees are sometimes caught short during a sudden cold spell and can be found  resting in a dormant state on leaf. This provides the ideal opportunity to photograph them. Even in windy conditions the use of flash can do a pretty good job of freezing  movement.