Busy as a Bumblebee

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A bumblebee’s hair littered with pollen grains.

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A day doesn’t go by, especially now that so many colorful flowers decorate our front yard, that I don’t see one of the world’s most efficient pollinators searching for nectar and pollen, the bumblebee. Colder days, when other bees are unable to put up with the temperature, the bumblebees are busy at work. These primarily yellow and black insects have long insulating hairs enabling them to forage for nectar and pollen in the cool early morning, early evening and especially into the late fall season until our very last zinnias and sunflowers have withered.

Sizes and color combinations indicate that there exists more than one species at our place and obviously also different age groups. Those of later summer are somewhat larger than those of May and early June. At least 13 different species of “Bombus” live in Wisconsin. One of the more common species, Bombus fervidus, the Great Northern Bumblebee, is also among the largest.

A bumblebee gets fierce to defend itself.

It used to be said that the bumblebee flew in defiance of all the laws of aerodynamics. Obviously unaware that theoretically it could not fly, having not read what the “experts” of the day had to say, the bumblebee has gone right on flying, century after century.

The sighting of the first bumblebee of spring is always a pleasant event of our phenological recordings. Bear in mind that, with the exception of the larger queens, all of the other bumblebees, the workers and drones, are annual insects which don’t winter over. The queen, perhaps due to her larger size and other factors that humans may never understand, is capable of surviving the winter. She spends considerable time consuming the first nectar to be found on the early flowers, and also searching for a suitable nesting site, very likely an abandoned mouse nest.

A bumblebee probes for nectar.

Nectar and pollen are gathered and mixed into bean-size lumps of the so-called bee bread. A few eggs, usually four to eight, are laid upon the mass, and a depression called a honey pot is made of wax and filled with nectar. Now the queen actually broods over her eggs like a mother hen. The eggs are vulnerable to cold temperature and must be kept warm. It is the energy derived from the honey pot that gives the queen strength to remain on the clutch of eggs.

Soon the eggs hatch into grubs, burrow into the bread, eat, grow and eventually spin cocoons. All this time the queen has been tending them, occasionally feeding them some nectar and keeping them warm. They change into pupae (PYOU-pee) and finally emerge as true female bumblebees, smaller than the mother and referred to as daughters or workers. They will faithfully care for the growing family by collecting food and waiting on the queen. About three weeks elapsed from the time an egg was laid until a worker bee emerged from its cocoon.

All the queen’s eggs laid during spring and into mid-summer hatch into workers. Their tongues are long enough to collect nectar from red clover and many other flowers.

Finally in late summer, some new queens along with more workers and drones (males) are hatched. These workers are larger now than in early summer and will actually mate with some of the drones and lay eggs, which will eventually become more drones.

Some of the drones will mate with the new queens, the only individuals from the entire colony that will survive the winter. All the rest of the other workers, drones, and the old queen will die. The colony at its peak may have numbered in the several hundreds or occasionally as many as around 2,000. The largest colonies persist where there is a dependable ongoing source of nectar. Bumblebees will range up to about a mile from their nest.

Here is where people can actually come to the aid of these highly important creatures by providing a succession of perennial flowering plants, especially native species. By planting more native species you will be assured of having a higher total of bees as well as more species of wild bees, bumblebees included. From the very earliest pussy willows, rich with pollen and nectar, through summer’s typical flowers, and into the fall season with its sunflowers, goldenrods and asters, all of these over a longer period of time will support the bumblebees which, in turn, will also help you reap more abundant crops of, for example, vegetables, fruits, legumes, and wildflowers. By the way, bumblebees are more efficient and more cost effective in pollination than are honeybees.

Don’t ever be fooled into thinking that a bumblebee can’t sting. Actually, unlike a honeybee (not native to North America) that can sting only once because its stinger is pulled from its body in the process, a bumblebee can sting repeatedly. I have yet to be stung by a bumblebee (famous last words!) in spite of having photographed many from very close range and having actually “petted” them with my fingertips as they guzzled nectar from sunflower blossoms on cold mornings and early evenings.

Bumblebees have been disappearing at an alarming rate in Britain to the point that scientists feel they may be wiped out in a few years. Let this be an important lesson for us North Americans! Three of the 19 United Kingdom species are already extinct and a further nine are on the critically endangered list. What a tragedy it would be if they’d disappear, because they are primary pollinators of food crops and wildflowers as well as many flowering trees. Unfortunately the colonies are largely underground, making it very difficult to study the state of various species.

You hopefully can be assured that, come next spring, the large queens will be afield in search of the very first available makings of bee bread. We could very well pause at our work outdoors and offer a word of thanks to the bumbees (as the Scots call them), one of the most overlooked but greatest assets to mankind. Harvest your garden crops with a tip of the hat to the beautiful, docile and hard-working “bumbees.”