Pictures that
bring you closer.

1. A colony on the move

A bee swarm in a tree

Our own apiary photograph.

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2. Thousands of lives. One community.

Workers on a comb

Our own apiary photograph.

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3. When an entire colony takes flight

A swarm crosses the sky

Our own apiary photograph.

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4. The mother of the colony

The queen among her workers

Our own apiary photograph.

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5. Born for a single moment

The drone: the male honey bee

Photo: DjDragon440 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0. Cropped, rotated, reduced in size and converted to WebP.

Source: Wikimedia Commons: Male honeybee.

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6. A world takes shape in wax

A colony's natural comb

Our own apiary photograph.

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An apiary surrounded by greenery.

Our own apiary photograph. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

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A glimpse of life between the wax cells.

Our own apiary photograph. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

Proportionally resized WebP copies; orientation applied and metadata removed. No changes to image content. No free licence is stated.

The marked queen among her workers.

Our own apiary photograph. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

Proportionally resized WebP copies; orientation applied and metadata removed. No changes to image content. No free licence is stated.

Combs built freely inside the hive.

Our own apiary photograph. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

Proportionally resized WebP copies; orientation applied and metadata removed. No changes to image content. No free licence is stated.

A crab spider with a captured honey bee on a white flower.

Photo: Bertram Reich. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

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A honey bee's antennae, eyes and pollen loads.

Photo: Bertram Reich. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

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A night-time photograph at the hive entrance.

Photo: Bertram Reich. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

Proportionally resized WebP copies; orientation applied and metadata removed. No changes to image content. No free licence is stated.

A look at the monitoring board beneath the colony.

Our own apiary photograph. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

Proportionally resized WebP copies; orientation applied and metadata removed. No changes to image content. No free licence is stated.

Early flowers from our own photographic archive.

Photo: Bertram Reich. Supplied from our apiary’s photographic archive.

Proportionally resized WebP copies; orientation applied and metadata removed. No changes to image content. No free licence is stated.

Magazine: Honey bees

A glimpse of life between the wax cells.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Bee eyes

The head of a honey bee worker

Photo: USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab / Sam Droege / Wikimedia Commons · Public Domain.

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Magazine: Bee sleep

A night-time photograph at the hive entrance.

Photo: Bertram Reich.

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Magazine: Winter in the hive

Beehives in the snow in Llangeler, Wales.

Photo: Marion Phillips / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Magazine: The waggle dance

Workers on the comb, where food is stored, information exchanged and young bees cared for.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Beeswax & comb building

Natural comb from our apiary: wax becomes both a supporting structure and a food store.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Bee bread

Pollen stored in comb cells: the food reserve known as bee bread.

Photo: Migco / Wikimedia Commons · Public Domain.

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Magazine: Water foragers

A honey bee taking up water. Photographed at an apiary in Poland.

Photo: Bartosz Kosiorek (Gang65) / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Magazine: Smelly feet in bumblebees?

A bumblebee on lavender. Contact with a flower can leave chemical footprints behind.

Photo: Martin Falbisoner / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Magazine: Wild bees

Red mason bee at a nest entrance

Photo: Orangeaurochs / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0.

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Magazine: Pollination

A honey bee on lavender. A flower visit can bring food gathering and pollination together.

Photo: Martin Falbisoner · CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Magazine: The bumblebee year

Buff-tailed bumblebee queen

Photo: Bj.schoenmakers / Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0.

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Magazine: Evolution

A flower bee on a sage flower

Photo: Gideon Pisanty / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0. The image versions and crops shown here are also licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Magazine: Cuckoo bees

A close-up of a female cuckoo bee of the species Nomada panzeri.

Photo: Janet Graham / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0.

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Magazine: Crab spiders

Only visible on closer inspection: a pale crab spider is holding the bee.

Photo: Bertram Reich.

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Magazine: Flower constancy

A honey bee with pollen loads on its hind legs. Flower constancy becomes apparent only across a sequence of visits.

Photo: Bertram Reich.

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Magazine: The flowering calendar

A flowering meadow in the Grainberg-Kalbenstein and Saupurzel nature reserve in Lower Franconia.

Photo: ElkeKrebs260263 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Magazine: Bees in town & country

A rooftop apiary from our photographic archive. Here, too, the flowers within reach are crucial.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Bees & climate change

An orchard apiary from our photographic archive. Flowering times, weather and food supply are closely connected.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Honey bees & Wild bees

A garden apiary from our photographic archive. Different bees need both flowers and suitable nesting places nearby.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Ground-nesting wild bees

A grey-backed mining bee (Andrena vaga) with pollen at its ground nest. The photograph shows part of the bee at the entrance.

Photo: Aiwok / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Magazine: The mason bee year

A European orchard bee (Osmia cornuta) at a cavity. Our account of the year follows this early spring species.

Photo: Björn S... / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Magazine: Good wild bee nesting aids

A nesting aid in the specialist exhibition at Naturschutzcenter Stuttgart: holes of different diameters and hollow plant stems. Cropped photograph.

Photo: Ra Boe / Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 de. Cropped from “Insektenhotels – professionelle Bauweise – 2016 by-RaBoe 07”; this version is under the same licence.

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Magazine: Bee, wasp or hoverfly?

A male marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus). Its yellow-and-black markings alone do not make it a wasp.

Photo: Sandy Rae / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0.

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Magazine: A balcony for bees

Common thyme (Thymus vulgaris) in flower. Even a culinary herb can provide food when some shoots are allowed to bloom; this photograph was taken in a garden.

Photo: Salicyna / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Magazine: Understanding honey

The wax cappings are removed from the honeycomb before extraction.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Honeydew honey & mānuka

Honey in a jar with a honey dipper; illustrative photograph without a varietal identification

Photo: annmteu / Pexels · Pexels Licence.

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Magazine: The honey harvest

At our apiary's uncapping station: honeycombs are prepared for extraction.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Magazine: Tasting honey

Honeys in different colours. This freely licensed photograph illustrates the comparison and does not identify a harvest from our apiary.

Photo: Ruffiana / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Magazine: Varroa

Varroa mite on a honey bee pupa

Photo: Gilles San Martin / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0. The image versions and crops shown here are also licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Magazine: Asian hornet

Asian hornet on a white flower head

Photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0. The image versions and crops shown here are also licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Magazine: Propolis

Propolis at the hive: this resinous material adheres to contact surfaces inside the hive.

Photo: Abalg · Public Domain.

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Magazine: Why bees sting

Our hive entrance: the threshold between the nest, with its brood and stores, and the world outside.

Our own apiary photograph.

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An Asian hornet nest in a building in Paslières, France.

Photo: Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0.

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Frames inside an open hive. They support the comb and can be removed for inspection.

Our own apiary photograph.

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Activity at our hive entrance, where returning foragers meet the work going on inside.

Our own apiary photograph.

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The close-up shows pale spider legs around the honey bee's head. The exact spider species remains unidentified.

Photo: Bertram Reich.

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Link preview: Bee knowledge

Bees on a comb. Our own apiary photograph; the same photograph appears in the article on the waggle dance.

Designed for the link preview using a cropped photograph, a colour panel, lettering and the outline bee. Exported as a 1200 × 630 pixel JPEG; metadata removed. No free licence is stated.

Hive sound

An authentic recording inside a honey bee hive, made by Skinkie on 27 April 2010. The source does not name the recording location. The same hive sound accompanies the beginning and end of the story.

Source: Skinkie: Honeybee-hive, Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0.

Editing: excerpt from seconds 40 to 56, mono, level increased by 4 dB, short fades at the file boundaries and conversion to MP3. Playback also fades gently in and out. No pitch changes or added sounds. The recording is loaded solely from this website, only after deliberate activation.