A review of "The Natural History of Bumblebees: A Sourcebook for Investigations" by Carol Ann Kearns.
This
tiny booklet (only about 100 pages) is an excellent introduction to the
behaviour and study of bumblebees. It also contains a bibliography with tips
for further reading.
Most of the information in the booklet wasn't big news, since there are bumblebees pretty much everywhere both where I live and in other parts of Europe I use to visit. So yes, I knew that bumblebees can forage even at night, or during winter. That's one of the reasons why I don't like them: they are large, they can sting, and they can show up pretty much anywhere at any time! I also knew that bumblebees live in underground nests, and that their colonies are smaller than those of honeybees or certain wasps. It's also obvious that they belong to several different species. I don't know their names, so I simply call them "black-and-yellow", "black-and-red" and "small-and-orange".
Did I mention that I intensely dislike them? ;-)
Still, you learn new things every day. For instance, I had no idea (really) that bumblebees actually are bees, and closely related to the honeybees at that. In Sweden, bumblebees aren't called bees, and most people think of them as something other than bees, some kind of independent group.
From "The Natural History of Bumblebees", I also learned about their importance as pollinators, including for commercial crops. Apparently, bumblebee colonies are bred, bought and sold in the United States, usually to greenhouse owners, but occasionally to scientists as well. The companies breeding bumblebees have somehow managed to modify bumblebee behaviour to make them more efficient pollinators, but the exact details are trade secrets!
The most fascinating chapter in this book deals with predators and parasites. It turns out that the world of the bumblebee isn't very rosy. Bumblebee queens who lack a colony of their own, might attack and take over already established colonies, killing the resident queen in the process, and take over her worker caste, who meekly start serving the intruder. In the high Arctic, one species of bumblebee has specialized in attacking and hijacking colonies of another species. Further south, this particular species establishes colonies of its own. More sinister are the "cuckoo" bumblebees, which always attack and parasitize colonies of other species. Bumblebees also have to stay clear (if they can!) of a whole range of predators, such as "beewolves", actually a kind of wasp which habitually kills bumblebees and feeds them to their larvae, sometimes seriously decimating the bumblebee population in a given area. There are also robber flies that mimic bumblebees, the better to catch and devour a real one. Another enemy is the wax moth, the larvae of which quite simply eat *everything* inside a nest, including the brood, the food storage and finally the comb itself! Ants also attack and kill bumblebee colonies, if they can find one.
The plight of the bumblebees, as it were...
At least my favourite kind of flies, hoverflies, are more benign. Their larvae, living inside the bumblebee nest, only eat debris...
Other chapters in this book deal with bumblebee conservation, how to breed bumblebees in captivity, foraging behaviour, and the danger of bumblebee stings. There are also (bad) photos of all North American species. Some more curious pieces of information are also included: apparently, some scientists have observed bumblebees feeding on carrion, or gathering dew from aphids. (Is that why ants attack bumblebees? "You stole my cow, stranger").
Those who want more information about these insects should look up more comprehensive books on the subjects. But for amateur entomologists, "The Natural History of Bumblebees" is a very good introduction.
Most of the information in the booklet wasn't big news, since there are bumblebees pretty much everywhere both where I live and in other parts of Europe I use to visit. So yes, I knew that bumblebees can forage even at night, or during winter. That's one of the reasons why I don't like them: they are large, they can sting, and they can show up pretty much anywhere at any time! I also knew that bumblebees live in underground nests, and that their colonies are smaller than those of honeybees or certain wasps. It's also obvious that they belong to several different species. I don't know their names, so I simply call them "black-and-yellow", "black-and-red" and "small-and-orange".
Did I mention that I intensely dislike them? ;-)
Still, you learn new things every day. For instance, I had no idea (really) that bumblebees actually are bees, and closely related to the honeybees at that. In Sweden, bumblebees aren't called bees, and most people think of them as something other than bees, some kind of independent group.
From "The Natural History of Bumblebees", I also learned about their importance as pollinators, including for commercial crops. Apparently, bumblebee colonies are bred, bought and sold in the United States, usually to greenhouse owners, but occasionally to scientists as well. The companies breeding bumblebees have somehow managed to modify bumblebee behaviour to make them more efficient pollinators, but the exact details are trade secrets!
The most fascinating chapter in this book deals with predators and parasites. It turns out that the world of the bumblebee isn't very rosy. Bumblebee queens who lack a colony of their own, might attack and take over already established colonies, killing the resident queen in the process, and take over her worker caste, who meekly start serving the intruder. In the high Arctic, one species of bumblebee has specialized in attacking and hijacking colonies of another species. Further south, this particular species establishes colonies of its own. More sinister are the "cuckoo" bumblebees, which always attack and parasitize colonies of other species. Bumblebees also have to stay clear (if they can!) of a whole range of predators, such as "beewolves", actually a kind of wasp which habitually kills bumblebees and feeds them to their larvae, sometimes seriously decimating the bumblebee population in a given area. There are also robber flies that mimic bumblebees, the better to catch and devour a real one. Another enemy is the wax moth, the larvae of which quite simply eat *everything* inside a nest, including the brood, the food storage and finally the comb itself! Ants also attack and kill bumblebee colonies, if they can find one.
The plight of the bumblebees, as it were...
At least my favourite kind of flies, hoverflies, are more benign. Their larvae, living inside the bumblebee nest, only eat debris...
Other chapters in this book deal with bumblebee conservation, how to breed bumblebees in captivity, foraging behaviour, and the danger of bumblebee stings. There are also (bad) photos of all North American species. Some more curious pieces of information are also included: apparently, some scientists have observed bumblebees feeding on carrion, or gathering dew from aphids. (Is that why ants attack bumblebees? "You stole my cow, stranger").
Those who want more information about these insects should look up more comprehensive books on the subjects. But for amateur entomologists, "The Natural History of Bumblebees" is a very good introduction.
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