Interesting facts about Bumblebees
Large, fluffy insects with short, stubby wings are known as bumblebees. Despite being bigger than honeybees, they don’t make as much honey. They are crucial pollinators, nevertheless. They are necessary for food to grow. Here are 30 Interesting facts about bumblebees:
If it seems to you that bumblebees are very similar to bees,
then you are absolutely right – these insects belong to the same family. They have a lot in common, from appearance to habits.
There are about 300 species of these insects in the world,
and they are found almost all over the world. That’s good, because they bring many benefits.
In the middle zone climate, bumblebee wake up from hibernation early,
around the end of April. Right now, it’s still pretty cold, but these amazing creatures do a good job with thermoregulation. In addition, the downwater that covers their bodies helps them retain accumulated heat.
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In the cold, bumblebee also know how to warm up with muscle effort.
To do this, they sway in place and quickly beat their wings.
Like wasps, bumblebees can sting many times without dying like bees.
Its sting is smooth, without notches, and does not remain on the victim’s body after the blow. Interestingly, at rest, it is not visible.
Bumblebee feed on nectar, which in general makes up their entire diet.
The exception is the “queen”, the queen bee, involved in the production of descendants. It feeds exclusively on pollen, because pollen is richer in nutrients than nectar. The uterus needs this because of the peculiarities of its physiology.
Previously, there were no bees in Australia or New Zealand,
but then they brought them there and they took root perfectly.
Each bumblebee family has a “trumpeter” who performs alarm clock tasks.
Seriously! Every morning this drone flies out of the nest, hangs near the entrance and wakes everyone else with a loud hum.
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The nests of these furry insects are most often settled in the soil,
and they voluntarily occupy abandoned burrows made by other animals. Sometimes they equip themselves with a dwelling on a litter of fallen leaves and in hollows of trees.
On average, a colony of bumblebees has 200 to 300 individuals
– tiny compared to bees, in which thousands of individuals can live in a hive.
In the Russian climate, bumblebee live only one hot season,
as it is impossible to stock up on enough winter supplies for all family members. Therefore, in autumn all die, and only a few fertilized queens remain alive, which next spring will bring descendants and become queens of new families.
There is a clear hierarchy in bee families.
The queen is above all, followed by young queens, and at the base of this pyramid are the males. It is the queen who attributes them to different roles – getting food, fertilizing females, protecting and repairing the nest.
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The wings of bumblebee are disproportionately small compared to their body,
and for a long time scientists could not understand how they flew. It turned out that everything is simple: the drone does not move its wings up and down, but rotates back and forth. Something like a helicopter happens.
Sometimes they ventilate the nest.
To do this, the drone hangs near the entrance and begins to work quickly the wings, keeping in place. This creates a wind strong enough to blow fresh air into the nest.
Unique in its type, cuckoo bumblebee do not collect pollen and nectar.
They are social parasites because, instead of building nests, they sneak into the nests of bees of other species and lay their eggs there, sometimes killing the eggs with larvae of that nest.
The body temperature of a drone is higher than that of a human
– about 40 ° C. In humans, it is known that the normal body temperature is 36.6°C.
Bumblebees cannot operate normally at air temperatures above 45°C
as they are sensitive to overheating. It is true that they know how to fight it, releasing a drop of liquid from the mouth, which evaporates and thus cools the insect’s head.
These phlegmatic insects generally do not react in any way to the presence of a person.
If you do not catch them with your hands and do not approach the nest (the bee nests are called “bombidarium“), nor will it occur to you to sting them.
Bumblebees are excellent pollinators,
so they are highly valued by farmers and gardeners. Its usefulness in this capacity further increases its nature, which is practically devoid of aggression. These insects are created especially, because by resuming them in the right place at the right time, you can get higher yields due to better pollination.
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No one knows exactly when the first bumblebees appeared.
The age of the oldest fossils belonging to the same species dates back to 26-38 million years ago, but were not modern bees, but their ancestors. However, they are very close to them in every respect.
Bumblebees, unlike several small insects, are rarely found in pieces of amber
because they are too large to drown completely in resin – amber, as you know, is a petrified resin. Of course, it happened, but infrequently.
Most of the different species of these insects live in Asia.
Most likely, they first appeared there, millions of years ago.
They grow very fast.
On average, the path from an egg to an adult takes about a month for bees, although the exact numbers here depend on their specific species.
An interesting fact: bumblebees, like bees, also make honey,
but many don’t even know it. It is true that, as the bee family usually has only a few hundred individuals, they do not harvest a large amount of honey. Your honey is thinner and less sweet.
The bumblebees are quite large.
Adults can grow up to about 2.5 inches long! And the presence of fuzz makes them visually even bigger.
The flight speed of a bee can reach 18 km/h.
This is not much, since some insects are much faster – dragonflies, for example, can accelerate to 50-55 km / h.
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If in the cold the beets need to warm the nest,
they start working together with the wings right there, inside. Because of this, their bodies heat up and consequently heat the enclosed space of the nest. The ideal temperature in the nest is 30-35 ° C.
Despite thermophilicity, these creatures are found even in cold climates.
So polar bumblebees, they are also Bombus polaris, live mainly in the Arctic, including in northern Russia and even Greenland.
The northern bumblebees (Bombus hyperboreus), who live in the same area, terrorize their relatives
– the above-mentioned northern bumblebee. Finding their nest, they enter, kill the queens and force the working people to work for them.
Bee venom is usually not dangerous to people if a person is not allergic to it
– in this case, the consequences can be very different, sometimes very serious.