Not a technicality: how a bee carries pollen decides how much it drops on the way, and therefore how good a pollinator it is. Dry scopal hairs shed far more pollen in flight than a honey bee's wetted corbicular pellet, which is why a solitary bee can out-pollinate a honey bee flower for flower while collecting less.
52 records
The pollen basket — a smooth concave hind-leg surface where pollen is packed wet into a dense pellet. Efficient for the bee and comparatively poor for the flower, because very little falls off in transit.
32 records
Dense dry hairs on the hind leg. Pollen is held loosely, sheds readily in flight, and that shedding is pollination.
15 records
Hairs on the underside of the abdomen, which is how the mason and leafcutter bees carry. It means the bee lands belly-first onto the anthers, contacting the stigma every time — one reason a single Osmia out-pollinates several honey bees.
1 records
Carried internally rather than on the body. Rare among bees.
10 records
Carries no pollen for young at all. The cleptoparasites, which lay in another bee's provisioned cell and have no need of the apparatus.
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