Buff Tailed Bumblebee

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 I saw my second bumblebee of the season yesterday and thought it was time for a more general discussion about bumblebees. The bee I saw was a Buff Tailed Bumblebee one of the most common and a bee that is used all over the world as a pollinator (sometimes introduced for that purpose).


There are two main categories of bumblebee. 
Firstly there are social bumblebees. These bees will have a queen bee who at this time of the year will come out of diapause ( a bit like hibernation) and be looking for a nest to lay her eggs in (perhaps a disused rodent nest in the ground). Colonies are much smaller than those of honey bees with perhaps fewer than 50 individuals. The queen lays fertilised eggs that grow into the female worker bees that then go on to feed the young. Later the queen produces unfertilised eggs that grow on the become the males (drones) that fly off to fertilise another queen somewhere else. Worker bees will drink nectar from flowers and collect pollen to feed their young.
The second main group of bumblebees are the cuckoo bumblebees. Cuckoo bumblebees have lost the ability to carry pollen. These bees emerge later in the year when the "ordinary" bumblebees are well advanced with their nests. These bees then lay their eggs in the host nest leaving the job of feeding and rearing the young to the host bees. (In the same manner as the cuckoo bird uses a host). Careful inspection of a bee's back legs will reveal whether or not the legs have "pollen baskets" or not and so whether or not it is a social bee or a cuckoo bee.
Identification after that is a question of checking the arrangement of stripes on their "rugby jerseys".
I am showing a shot of a leaflet from Bumblebee Conservation UK that explains the ID process very well.


And the next shot shows the "rugby jerseys" of some of the common players.


Diary Notes.
Still no frogspawn in the pond! Whats going on?! I made what I thought was going to be a quick trip to Tarn Sike reserve that I help to look after. It turned into a bit of a marathon as a 3m length of dry stone wall had collapsed so I ended up with a lengthy repair job. Lots of curlew calling up there and I got a pleasing shot of some lapwing.

Overnight cameras drew a bit of a blank, but I did get a good heron shot at the pond (perhaps that's why there is no frogspawn!









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