Even if you do make the mistake of upsetting a bumble bee colony, you’ll likely have less stings to show for it because bumble bee nest are smaller and there will be less bees to contend with. Although they have this ability, bumblebees tend to be much more docile and will only sting when cornered or if their nest is disturbed. Unlike honey bees, bumblebees have smooth stingers that allow them to sting more than once. You might also wonder if bumblebees die after stinging, the way honey bees do. Also, because bumblebee colonies are modest in size and don’t overwinter, they would never store enough nectar for anyone to harvest it. Bumblebees do not lower the water content of their nectar, like honeybees do. The reason this stored nectar is not considered honey is because its not dehydrated. This stored food enables new queens to stay in their nests and care for their first batch of young without going hungry. They build a kind of pot to hold the nectar they gather. The answer is, no, but they do collect and store nectar. Bumblebee honey?Īt this point, you might be wondering if bumble bees make honey. However, we still don’t fully understand how worker size relates to colony tasks. These bulky workers are able to collect more food, fly in cooler temperatures, and evade more predators than their petite sisters. Larger workers perform most of the foraging, for example, while smaller bees seem to stay in the nest. One worker might be ten times bigger than another! It’s believed that their difference in stature is related to the work they do. The body size of worker bees varies dramatically and is determined by how much food they are fed during development. Once she has a big enough workforce, the queen bumblebee retires from forging altogether and performs only the vital task of egg-laying.Īs the population of worker bees grows, the queen is able to lay more and more eggs, which will hatch into more worker bees. These eggs will hatch into worker bees who will aid her in foraging and brood rearing. Once in her nest, the queen lays her first round of eggs. Most bumblebee species nest underground in old rodent dens, but some will occupy cavities in bird houses or wood piles. She begins by seeking out a suitable nesting site. The duties of establishing a nest fall to the queen alone. They don’t have the help of worker bees when they first emerge from hibernation. Nesting sitesīumblebee queens must start their colonies from scratch. She hibernates underground and if she survives, she will emerge in spring to start her own colony. After she has mated, the new queen must feed heavily on nectar to prepare herself for hibernation. As with honeybees, the queens leave the colony to mate with males from other nests, but bumblebee queens are much less promiscuous! While a honeybee queen may mate with as many as 40 males, the bumblebee queen typically mates only with one. Queens and matingĪs summer comes to a close, bumblebee colonies begin to make new queens. The average honey bee colony boasts 50,000 bees. The most populous bumblebee colonies max out at around 250 individuals, which is nothing for a honey bee colony. For this reason, bumblebee colonies never have time to grow very large tend to be small in comparison to honeybees. However, bumblebee colonies are annual and die out at the end of summer, while honeybee colonies can live for decades. They each have a body of female worker bees, a single egg-producing queen and a number of male drone bees. Read on to find out how bumblebees differ from honeybees.īumblebees and honeybees both live in colonies. Many people assume that the two live very similarly or that what is true of honey bees is also true of bumblebees, but they have some fascinating differences. Honeybees and bumblebees are the two most well-known bee species.
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