When a honeybee is foraging, she ends up covered in pollen. While some of this pollen ends up on other blossoms, thus pollinating the plants, the bee also brings protein-rich pollen back to the hive.

Her pollen-handling method is ingenious. She cleans the pollen dust from her body with the brushes on her legs, then transfers the collected pollen to the pollen press on her back legs. There it is compacted into a pellet and pushed to a structure called the pollen basket for storage. All this is done while she hovers in the air.