Bumble Bees

Bumble bees are regular visitors in our garden. These aerodynamic marvels favor a cluster of tall salvia (sage) plants in the backyard. Some Bumble Bees are enormous (an inch and a half long) and are either all-black or black and yellow. The all-black ones are my favorites - they are absolutely enormous, but I have never been able to find their species name. The black and yellow ones are smaller - these, I believe, are Yellow-faced Bumble Bees (Bombus vosnesenskii). This bumblebee - see photo - is around most of the year but more common in spring and summer. It is the most common bumblebee of California, where there are about 27 species, but that number is dropping as habitat loss and environmental stresses take their toll.

Bumble bees are not to be confused with our other frequent visitors, the smaller and shinier Carpenter Bees, who look a bit like Bumble Bees but aren’t. I have never seen Carpenter Bees boring round holes in wood (which is how they get their name), when they aiming to build an egg-laying corridor, but I do see them around.

Bumblebees are valuable pollinators of vegetables and flowers, and I have read that the more insect-pollinated fruit you have, the bigger your fruit will be. If your plants are not producing, there may not be enough pollinators around. Bumblebees are especially suited for tomato flowers, which need to be vibrated to release the pollen. They also are great for cross pollination since they spend longer going plant to plant. As for honey, they only produce enough for the nest so are not useful commercially.

Bumble bees live in nests in the ground, not hives, and it is best not to disturb them since they will give it up anyway by winter. They do not swarm and they do not buzz you when you are eating (like wasps do). The females can sting but they won’t sting humans unless attacked or if their nest is attacked (their drones have no sting at all). They behave differently from bees and usually fly away if you get too close.

The Wikipedia entry on their flight aerodynamics (here) makes for amusing reading.

Photo: Kevin Cole/Wikipedia