Bumbleebees emerging from the nest |
Just to sum up with a few little bits of interesting information that you may not know about bumblebees. They do produce honey but in very small amounts so it cannot be harvested by humans. They also have ‘smelly feet’. When they visit a flower they leave a chemical scent which tells other bees not to waste time and energy on that flower as a bee has already taken the nectar. Different species also have different tongue lengths so they are adapted for pollinating and feeding out of different plants. And finally the cuckoo bumblebee is parasitic and will invade a nest of a specific bumblebee species. She will then either kill or evict the queen and take over the workers, making them raise her young. This behaviour is similar to the cuckoo bird which removes the eggs of another birds nest, lays its eggs in their place and then leaves the nest owner to raise its young.
Cuckoo bumblebee |
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