Species Spotlight Challenge - Day 12 - Buff-tailed Bumblebee (probably)

In the UK we have around 270 species of bee. Of these 24 are classed as bumblebees - with their bodies  densely covered with long hairs of various colours. Many of these are rare or restricted in their distribution and there are only about 7 that you are likely to see around Middlesbrough, with similar numbers (although possibly different species) in most other areas.

Bumblebees are among the most popular and likeable of our native insects - less aggressive than Honeybees, and unlikely to sting if left in peace. They live in smaller colonies than Honeybees (40-400 in a colony usually, compared to around 50,000 for Honeybees). The colony is established in the spring by a queen which has spent the winter hibernating in a hole in the ground (often in a north facing bank so she doesn't get warmed up by the winter sun). She lays eggs from which workers (all female) arise to take care of and defend the nest and to gather food for it. Males and young queens are hatched later, and they generally leave the nest and mate. Once the males and young queens have left the nest the workers disperse, and eventually die at the end of the season, as do the males.

Our spotlight species today is the Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) - one of our commonest bumblebees. Despite the name, only the queens actually have a buff coloured 'tail' (really the end of the abdomen). The males and the workers both have white, or whitish, tails, which is the reason why, in the title of this blog I have added the word 'probably' - there are a few other species (including the very common White-tailed Bumblebee which have white tails and often only reliably separated using DNA. However, the presence of a very thin brownish band between the black and the white of the tail, and the fact that the white is really off-white and not bright white, make me think that this is either a male or a worker Buff-tailed.

Although most bumblebees do follow the pattern of colony formation described above, Buff-taileds in cities, particularly in the south of the UK, have started becoming 'winter active' in recent years, meaning that the workers are surviving the winter and remaining active, even when there is snow on the ground. They are helped in this by the presence of many winter-flowering ornamental plants such as Oregon-grape, and Honeysuckle.