Contrary to popular imagination, bumblebees are not solitary creatures. But compared to honeybees' metropolitan colonies (50,000 or more) bumblebees' nests are tiny villages ~ populated by 30 to 150 workers at their peak.
Also contrary to popular belief, bumblebee hives ARE available, fully stocked with bees:
But unlike honeybees' nests, bumblebees' will never fit neatly between frames. Constructed in muddy-coloured wax, they tend to look something more like a "Village of the Mud People":
Bumblebees CAN sting. Unlike honeybees their stings aren't barbed. But they're such placid creatures they very seldom use them.
Bumblebees do make honey from flower nectar just like their more glamorous cousins the "honey" bees. Unfortunately as their waxy nests contain acorn-shaped "rooms" rather than hexagonal cells a photo isn't possible. So have a look at some more bees buzzing into their nest:
Here's a David Attenborough video from Life in the Undergrowth:
ALL ANGELS ~ THE SCIENTIST
I heard this on the radio last night and really liked it:
Very pretty song.
ReplyDeleteWe've a lot of bumblebees around our house this year - not so many yellow jackets.
We don't have bumble bees out here unfortunately but i remember them from my childhood in England.
ReplyDeleteThat's a Cold Play song isn't it?
I've always liked bumbly bees. Big lumbering deep toned velvety creatures that they are. As for yellow jackets or wasps, I'm terrified of being stung by one of them, purely because I've been hospitalised twice after one of their attacks. We have hornets here, but unfortunately, no bumble bees. I'm not sure if they're in the cooler states, but they do have them in New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteI've just been in my garden taking photos of visiting bees*!*
ReplyDeleteJeannie: yellowjackets ~ wasps? I once lived with wasps in the eves next to my sticky-out attick window. Nightmare. I had queen hornets buzzing in at 4am in February and March..!
ReplyDelete(Twas then I discovered I'm a crack shot with the cockroach spray...)
Baino: that's a shame... but having heard Sydney's "tropical" garden birdsong... I'm not surprised... that said, I once saw a youtube of a MASSIVE black bumblebee in Thailand... getting extremely angry with a windowpane...
Pussinboots: you need to keep an insulin injection pen in your fridge!
Bimbimbie: 'ang on! Let me 'ave a look!
Bumblebees are neat critters. I much prefer them to yellow jackets and hornets that tend to attack.
ReplyDeleteyes ~ some of them naturalists tend to imply that anyone who gets stung by a wasp ~~ it's somehow their own fault. And yet they're vicious bastards. No-one can go near a wasps' nest, and yet a bumblebee hive you can take the lid right off and the tubby bees just carry on buzzing and crawling all over the place...
ReplyDeleteBaino: I'm not sorry about the song... sorry...
ReplyDeleteWhat great photos, Gleddy! They blew me away.
ReplyDeleteLove,
SB