Social Black Bumblebee Foraging. There so many species of bees, bumblebee is a social bee and good pollinator.
Social Black Bumblebee Foraging.
All Bees are not created equal. Most people think all bees live in hives and produce honey and have a queen bee. Its not so. Out of 267 of bee species recorded in the UK, only one species is the honey bee. 25 species are bumblebees. Out of these 26 bee species they are the only social bees and live in colonies. But Bumblebees do not live in hives.
The other 90 % of bees are Solitary Bees.
The social black bumblebee is quit a friendly one to. They will never just sting you. In fact no bee will sting you. Unless like the honey bee she would be protecting her honey in the hive. The other bees do not have honey to protect so are therefore not a threat.
The Bumblebees have a habit of visiting the same patches of flowers every day. As long as they continue to find nectar there. They are known for their habit as the flower pollinators.
This bumblebee was certainly getting her fill of pollen on her body.
Even notice her face and legs and tongue full of pollen while collecting nectar.
According to stats, only the female bumblebee has a stingers. They will actually warn you before they sting, by sticking up a middle leg to show you she is annoyed by you. Which means “back off”. They will only become aggressive if you are bothering their nest.
Spending time on these yellow cosmos flowers we planted on the farm to give the bees some food during rainy times.
This black bumblebee is smaller than normal, therefore I guess she is a young one.
Foraging so nicely. A few were going from flower to flower.
Showing her dark wings and digging deep into the flower for nectar.
Cosmos flowers and social black bumblebee.
A closer view of the bumblebee on the flowers.
All bees social or solitary are such great pollinators and need protecting.
Learn how most of the species live and how their life cycles are so you can recognize them and save them.
Some posts on these black bumblebees to view and learn about them.
- A Busy Pollination Black Bumblebee
- Black Bumblebee on cosmos flowers.
- Black Bumblebee on Sunflowers
- A Bumblebees life cycle
- A Black bumblebee foraging on flowers.
As you can see there are a lot of black bumblebees on our popular cosmos flowers.
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