The young and the old bee

I was watching the honeybees yesterday on the Autumn  Joy Sedum. I took this picture because it shows two phases of the foragers. The bee on the bottom is a younger forager while the bee on the top is older. You ask how could I know this? As a honeybee ages, she looses the hairs on the top of her thorax plate. This is often an indicator of age of a honeybee. A honeybee becomes a forager at about the half way point of her life. Our honeybees are extremely busy collecting all they can.