Access resources in another osgi bundle?

I have created two OSGI bundles A and B using the eclipse Plug-in project wizard (using eclipse Helios).

In the manifest file of bundle B I have added bundle A as a dependency. Further I have exported the packages in A so they are visible for B. I also have a .properties file in bundle A that I would like to make visible for bundle B. In the build.properties pane in bundle A I have specified:

source.. = src/
bin.includes = META-INF/,\
               .,\
               bundle_A.properties

Now in bundle B I try to load the .properties file using:

  private Properties loadProperties() {
    Properties properties = new Properties();
    InputStream istream = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(
        "bundle_A.properties");
    try {
      properties.load(istream);
    } catch (IOException e) {
      logger.error("Properties file not found!", e);
    }
    return properties;
  }

But that gives a nullpointer exception (the file is not found on the classpath).

Is it possible to export resources from bundle A (just like when you export packages) or somehow access the file in A from B in another way (accessing the classloader for bundle A from bundle B)?