Description

Bumblebees are amazing looking creatures. In this paragraph I will explain what they look like. They have two antennae. Their antenna has a pair of antennae cleaners on each leg. The antenna is inserted into a notch. The antenna is pulled through the notch. The metatarus is bent enclosing the antenna. Any debris or pollen is caught on the comb fringing the notch. The entire antenna of a worker and queen have a long scape and a roundish pedicel that is followed by ten smaller segments that make up the flagellum. The male has eleven segments in its flagellum. Bumblebees have pore plates on the last segment of their antenna. The pore plates detect smells and send signals to the brain. The scent molecules pass through their pore plates then stick to the receptor sites on the sensory cells. Their taste and smell is conveyed to bee by tiny hairs on the antennae and mouth.

Food

Bumblebees have a very unique diet. Bumblebees are vegetarians at all stages in their life. All the workers (females) gather pollen and nectar. The drones (males) do not. Bumblebees sometimes eat the pollen that they collect. It is a good source of protein. Most of the pollen is fed to the larva. The workers and drones eat very little. They live on nectar that turns into honey. The queens eat the pollen to give her protein for egg formation. The bumblebees get all of their food from flowers. Some foraging bumblebees avoid flowers visited by other species and they often visit the same patch of flowers. Bumblebees can scent mark the flowers that they had visited. The scent mark can be recognized by other species of bumblebees. When bumblebees leave their foraging trip they carry nectar in their stomach for fuel. The amount of nectar that they need is 10% by volume collected in their foraging trip.
                                  

Habitat

Bumblebees live in many peculiar places. The most common places that you would find them is in leaf litter in a hedge bottom, an old mouse hole, cool, dark places under a large stone or under a wooden floor of a building. They are found in high latitudes and high altitudes. Bombus polaris and Bombus alpinus range in colder climates where there are usually no bees. Some bumblebees live in northern Ellesmere Island which is the north most of any eusocial insect. Bumblebees form bee colonies. Their colonies are much less extensive than honey bees due to a number of factors. One factor is the small size of the nest cavity and the fact that a single female is responsible for construction and reproduction of the colony. Mature bumblebee nests hold fewer than fifty individuals. Their nests may be within tunnels in ground made by other animals or tussock grass. Sometimes bumblebees construct a wax canopy over the top of the nest for protection and insulation. Bumblebees do not preserve their nest over the winter..

Enemies

Bumblebees have a number of enemies. One of their worst enemies is the most destructive parasite called the flesh fly maggot. Other enemies of the bumblebee include lesser fly maggots, sap beetles, scavenger and predator mites, the dried fruit moth caterpillar, and many others depending on their geographical area. Shrews, mice, and skunks are very destructive to bumblebee colonies. Humans are another bad enemy of the bumblebee. Humans spray insecticides on blooming plants. Bumblebees are just as sensitive to garden chemicals as honey bees. More bumblebees are killed by parasites then predators due to the female’s sting and the coloration of the bumblebee. Crab spiders ambush the bumblebees at the flowers. A few species of bird can remove the sting before they eat it. Spotted fly catchers and shrives are known to be predators of the bumblebees. U.S. wasps specialize in hunting bumblebees. Badgers, foxes, bears, and small mammals all break open the nest and eat the larvae, bees, and the food stores. No vertebrate of any kind specialize in hunting bumblebees. Some species of ants invade their nest if they find them. The ants often eat the food stores, eggs, and the grub which destroys the colony.                 

Protection

Bumblebee have many things to protect themselves from their enemies. They have a venomous stinger that they use to attack their predators if the hive or themselves feel threatened. Their stinger is not barbed, unlike the honeybee, so they can sting more than once. Only the worker bee and the queen bee have a stinger. The male does not have a stinger. Bumblebees generally nest in places that are hard to reach. They protect their nest by digging it out of dead wood, soil, or other material. The bumblebee species are not aggressive. While in flight they can resist wind speeds up to 70 km/h. These things have kept the bumblebee around for many years.

Peculiar Characteristics

Bumblebees have many characteristics that make them so unique. They are close relatives to the honeybee but their colonies only survive during the warm season unlike the honeybee. The new queens hibernate alone to begin a new colony in the spring. There are fewer individuals in the colony than the honeybee and bumblebees do not use a dance to communicate the location of food. They do not hoard a large amount of honey either. They can control their body temperature. In the winter the queens and workers can shiver their flight muscles to warm them. That allows them to fly at lower temperatures than the honeybee. Their large size and heat conserving coats help them stay warm. They are very sensitive to nest disturbance. In England several species have become extinct due to land clearing and agricultural practices. Bumblebees are highly social insects.