The queens of this bee type can reach the whopping length of 40 mm, which is two times bigger than the regular bumblebee. The world’s largest bumblebee is Bombus dahlbomii native to the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile. This leads to pollinating flowers that they weren’t able to pollinate before. Scientists have managed to create an artificial means which prevent the bumblebees from having their winter sleep so they can keep updating the families. It’s a well-known fact that bumblebees are an important component of the pollination process of different species of plants. The bee workers are smaller if born at the beginning of the year and bigger at the end of the year.Īnother peculiarity of the bumblebee family is that there are bees born at the same time but with a different length of their proboscis which means they are specialised in pollinating different flower types. The “mothers” and the workers gather pollen and transport it back to the family in pollen baskets on their back feet. Pollinationīumblebees are crucial for the pollination of many flowers. Therefore, the worker bumblebees without realising they are not related would raise the offspring of the cuckoo bumblebee. The Cuckoo bumblebee kills the social bumblebee queen and lays her own eggs in the nest. There is one variety of bumblebees known to nature that is a pest for the hives. There is a time when the bee workers and the drones die and the “mothers” fly away to search for a safe place for their winter sleep. The newly hatched females will then become Queen Bees and are being fertilized after that. One difference between the two bee types is that the honey bees’ hives contain flat vertical wax bars and the bumblebees organise their hives on a growing pile of cells.Īt the end of the summer, the Mother Bee starts laying unfertilized eggs, from which are then the male bees hatched or also called drones. The working bees will then take care of the next hatched larvae of the family which is identical to the honeybees’ hive life. When they are fully grown the larvae form a cocoon in which they reach the final stage of their metamorphose development, which then leads to the appearance of the first bee workers of the new family. The newly hatched larvae would eat the dried pollen nectar they find around them until the mother starts feeding them. This nectar serves her as food during the time of the egg-laying. She also builds a circle sphere of wax for honey which she positions at the front of the hive and fills with nectar. Most bumblebees nest in the ground as the Mother Bee is the one who starts building a little bowl from pollen in the middle of the hive then lays eggs and seals them with wax. This for example could be an abandoned nest of a wood mouse, also known as a field mouse. The Bee Mother is the one who chooses the space where the hive will settle. The bumblebee hives have a shape of a sphere and one entrance which is also an exit. These features help the bumblebees to live in Northern areas and Alpine heights.Ī lot of bumblebee families have disappeared from England in the last ten years because of the adoption of agricultural lands.īumblebees belong to the family Bombus from the Apidae, class Hymenoptera. Their size and the fact that they are covered with hair also help them to keep a good temperature for life and work. If the temperatures drop, they use vibrations to heat their bodies and continue their working process. The bumblebees are one of the few bee species that can self-regulate their body temperature. Another very distinguished difference is that bumblebees don’t do the usual for the honey bees to dance when communicating with each other.Īnd because bumblebees have such an importance for nature, they are deeply researched by scientists and there are many known facts about them. In addition, the bumblebees create smaller families than the honey bees, with fewer individuals. During the rest of the year, the young mother bees fall in a deep sleep only to wake up again in spring and start a new family. They are native to the areas with temperate climates in the Northern Hemisphere and often go further north and higher than other bees.īumblebees are close relatives to the honey bees and they also are ruled by a Mother Bee who lays eggs and have bee workers and male bees.Īnd even though they share a lot of similarities with the honey bees, the bumblebees are only thriving in the summer season. Bumblebee is a very common name for bigger, all-covered in hair, more often black and yellow bees.
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