Bewildering Bumblebees

[Daisy]

Did you know that male bumblebees have hairy hind legs without a pollen basket, and that they usually have more facial hair than females. Males also generally have longer, more straggly hair. So if your bee has hairy legs, a moustache and looks a bit scruffy it's probably male!

I'm generally fascinated by bees but never know one species from another. Yesterday I revived an exhausted bee I found on our kitchen window sill. I made up a little sugar syrup and fed it to the bee and within 10 minutes or so it was flying again and I opened the window and off it went. I noticed it had a little white patch at the end of its thorax so, curious, I Googled it. That's when I found out about the scruffy male!

I thought my pal was a buff-tailed bumblebee, but Garden BBs have white bums as well. I didn't know to look at the patterns of yellow and black for identification.

https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/identification-tips/

I'm now more confused than when I started!

[Plantaholic]

I love bumble bees, my GD used to revive bees with Clover flowers.

[Oma]

Well you learn something new every day

[Gemini]

I keep meaning to post, bumblebees are living in our bird box high on the apple tree! No birds have ever shown interest but this summer bees live there. OH is happy as she says they keep pollinating her raspberry canes

[Nanto2girls]

We had bees in one of our bird boxes last year.

[Daisy]

Bees are always good news.

OH and I were planting some ornamental grasses in the front garden this morning. While I was waiting for him to dig a big enough hole I was watching the bees on a couple of Geums. They all had white tails and I think they were Buff-tailed ones. But they didn't keep still long enough to be sure.