One of the first bees beginning to emerge at this time of year in early spring is the buff-tailed bumblebee Queen. She can be easily recognised at about 2cm long, with two golden yellow bands across her fur and her a “buff”, beige coloured tail.
Sue Kennedy (rspb-images.com)
video: Nancy Brown
Since mating last summer and hibernating over winter, these queens are now foraging the available flowers for much needed nectar and pollen in preparation to find an underground nest site and lay their eggs.
The eggs will hatch in late spring and initially be mostly (fertilised) female worker bees. Male, drone (unfertilised) bees tend to hatch later in summer and once fully developed, leave the nest in search of their own Queen to mate with to begin the following year’s life-cycle.
Interestingly, before they can take flight, bumble bees must raise their temperate to approximately 30°C! To do this, they uncouple their wings and shiver to pump warm blood around their bodies.
Yes, they have blood, and a heart!…all be-it a very different shaped one to ours, more like a tube running from the head down to the tail.
It can actually take several minutes for the bee to reach the temperature to fly, but the “shivering” mechanism takes place internally as they crawl about so it’s not something we are likely to actually witness. It's something of a privilege to see these queens buzzing about in early spring before their life becomes confined to the nest to lay eggs for the rest of the summer. At that time, their own offspring of female workers will have taken over foraging, feeding and maintenance duties in the nest.
With a bigger body, less flight agility and a shorter tongue than honey bees, bumbles particularly favour some of the larger, open flowers, many of which we have growing at Flatford.
Some of their favourites include:
Dead nettles,
Lungwort
Meadow Cranesbill
Primroses
Scabious
Violets
There is an interesting clip of a Queen Bumblebee warming up her body temperature from the BBC’s
“Life in the Undergrowth” series narrated by Sir David Attenborough here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-o6e57AEGo
There is Bee attractor flower seed mix available from the RSPB online shop here:
https://shopping.rspb.org.uk/bees-butterflies-bugs/pollinating-bee-attractor-seed-pack.html?ClickType=Text&ListType=&ListName=&Position=105&tracking=searchterm:wildflower+seed