Haslemere Educational Museum
Wild Bees
There will be few people who cannot recognise the familiar Bumblebee. In early spring, the hibernating queens fly round the early flowers, feeding or prospecting for a new nest sites in which to start their nests. Their yellow-banded bodies are easily identified, some of the later emerging species have red tails, whilst others have white or ginger tails and they lack the yellow stripes.
In all there are some 22 species in the UK, within that number there are 6 species that are called cuckoo bees, since they make use of the other species nests to rear their young, they are now regarded as bumble bees.
True Bumblebees
True Bumblebee emerges in early spring forage looking for food and search for nest sites. These can be in old mammal burrows holes in trees or bird boxes. On finding a suitable nest site the queen begins to collect pollen from flowers and stores it in the nest in a thimble sized pollen loaf, around this she lays eggs.
The newly hatched larva feed on this loaf, which is constantly added to by the queen. A nectar pot is also made to store nectar for food in times of bad weather. On developing from larva to bumblebee they become the workers and they commence collecting pollen and nectar.
As summer progresses the nest becomes full and eggs develop into queen and males. It is at this point the original queen and workers die. Males leave the nest first and mate with the later emerging queens, who then go off to find a suitable hibernation site.
Cuckoo bees
Cuckoo bee queens hatch after their hosts; they enter the established nests of the bumblebee and kill off the resident queen. Her eggs are laid in the nest and the host bumblebee workers bring up the young of the cuckoo bee.
Differences of the Bumble Bee and Cuckoo Bee
True Bumble Bees have almost clear wings they are very hairy while cuckoo bees wings are darkened or smokey and the body is less densely covered in hair. Other differences are that true female bumblebees collect pollen on their hind legs. On the hind legs you will see a smooth shiny surface surrounded by long hairs, this is the pollen basket.
Collecting Pollen
The early spring females, usually Bombus terrestris, will be seen collecting pollen from crocus flowers sallow and dandelion flowers, which they form into a pollen ball. The ball is taken into an untidy nest, usually in an underground hole or cavity. She will lay eggs from which will hatch worker bees who then collect food for the increasing colony.
In cuckoo bees there is no pollen baskets. Males of bumblebees have only a few hairs and are unable to collect pollen. The abdomens of the males tend to be rounded and the females pointed and finally a count of the antennal segments will show that both cuckoo and bumblebees, the males have 13 segments the females 12 segments.
Feeding
Bumble bees have adapted to feed on the various types of flower, they have biting jaws and each species has evolved a tongue that enables it to gather food from particular flowers. Emergence of the various species will coincide with the flowers on which they depend, some species are able to use a wide variety of plants and are thus widely found.
Honeybees too are able to use a wide variety of plants, their use in agricultural orchards and importance in food cultivation is well known bee colonies are often transported to farms to aid pollination.
Honey Bees
It is only by being aware of the Bumblebees lifestyle or ecology that we can go onto appreciating the honeybee. In appearance it is smaller less colourful the body is banded, but not in highly visible yellow black white red and ginger bands. The body is banded, but in shades of brown, amber and fawn. Honeybees of this type are called Apis forms and can be found now on most continents, they form a genus of 5 or 6 species.
They are all highly social; our Honey Bee Apis mellifer is native to the steppes of Asia through Europe and into Norway. It is this species that Man through apiculture has spread into other areas or the world where previously it had not existed.
The Colony
We saw in the Bumble Bee that the fertile Queen emerged in the spring to begin nest building, in the Honey Bee the colony as a whole survives the winter.
By gathering sufficient food from the previous summer they are able to survive the winter as a colony. Importantly they are able to raise the ambient temperature within the nest. This enables the Queen to begin laying eggs as early as late December, so that by the first warm days of spring there are plenty of bees within the colony to begin collecting food from the first flowers. This puts them well ahead of the Bumblebees in the development of the colony.
Within the colony or hive there is a high degree of specialisation, young bees hatch and commence a series of duties that starts with hive cleaning, brood feeding and rearing, ventilation and temperature regulation and finally in the finale weeks of their lives foraging. It is this ability to take advantage of the early improving weather that colony size increases so that by early summer they are able to subdivide and form new colonies elsewhere. This is achieved by the production of special queen cells eggs that are laid within them and will by being fed a special food develop into Queens. As these emergence the old Queen and her retainers usually exit the nest and form a new colony elsewhere. The new queen or queens will emerge and one will achieve dominance of the colony by killing any other queens in the colony.
Hibernation
Bumble bees increase in a different way, towards the of the summer eggs laid within the nest will turn into Queens that on emergence mate and then hibernate until the spring, when the whole cycle starts again.
The honeybee colony survives as an entity the bumblebee relies on hibernation to bridge the winter months. By its ability to gather sufficient food from early spring and store any excess, the honeybee is able to keep the colony intact over several winters. By raising the colony temperature the queen is able to commence laying early in December. Given a fair summer they will be able to produce new colonies. Queen Bumblebees on the other hand die after they have produced queens for the next spring most will be dead by September.
So we can see that there are visual and organisational differences between bumblebees and the honeybee. Honeybee colonies are very much larger, but both species have evolved ways to survive.
The Varieties
True Bumble Bee
True Bumble bee have clear wings are hairy, females have pollen baskets and long tongues in order to access flowers with long tubes, others have shorter tongues to access flowers with short tubes, some bite into the base of the flower to gain nectar.
Cuckoo Bees
Cuckoo Bees have no pollen baskets have darkened wings, less hairy but resemble their host in order to gain access to the nest.
Honey Bees
Honey Bees are quiet colours, it is banded in shades of brown amber and fawn, they live in large colonies are generally smaller than bumble bees and like bumblebees visit a wide variety of flowers. Both honey and bumblebees have a high degree of specialisation within the nests, though the untidy nests of bumblebees suggest a lesser degree than that of the honeybee, where the construction of cells and collection and storage of eggs larva pollen and honey demand a high degree of skill. It is perhaps here that the differences can be seen to be greatest.
