Bumblebee

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Bumblebee
Ackerbumel (Bombus pascuorum) (worker)

Ackerbumel ( Bombus pascuorum ) (worker)

Systematics
Superfamily : Apoidea
without rank: Bees (Apiformes)
Family : Real bees (Apidae)
Subfamily : Apinae
Genre : Bumblebees ( bombus )
Type : Bumblebee
Scientific name
Bombus pascuorum
( Scopoli , 1763)

The bumblebee ( Bombus pascuorum ) is a type of bumblebee ( Bombus ). It is parasitized by the field cuckoo bumblebee Bombus (Psithyrus) campestris . The species is common and not endangered.

features

drone
Above-ground bumblebee nest (upper wax cover of the nest ball has been removed)
Dark guy
Lighter type

The animals reach a body length of 15 to 18 mm (queen), 9 to 15 mm (worker) or 12 to 14 mm (drone). Their wingspan is 28 to 32 mm (queen), 20 to 28 mm (worker) and 24 to 27 mm (drone). Your thorax is yellowish to reddish brown in color. The abdomen is hairy gray-black to varying degrees from the first to the fourth tergite , with the spaces between the segments being lightly hairy, the fifth and sixth tergites are yellowish to reddish-brown hairy. The species is variable in its coloration, there are also specimens with red-brown or gray-black thorax. Their head is of medium length, the proboscis is long and reaches a length of 13 to 15 mm (queen), 12 to 13 mm (worker) or 10 to 11 mm (drone). The species can be confused with the Mooshummel ( Bombus muscorum ) and the variable bumblebee ( Bombus humilis ). The former, however, lack black hair on the thorax or the base of the wings, they have a lighter colored scutellum and are longer, more densely and evenly hairy. Individuals of the field bumblebee with reduced black hair on the abdomen are difficult to distinguish from the variable bumblebee.

Occurrence and habitat

The species is distributed between the North Sea and the Alps up to an altitude of around 1700 meters and occurs frequently. As an ubiquist and adaptable cultural follower, it colonizes a large number of different habitats, such as meadows, pastures, fallow land, ditches and embankments, road, path and field edges as well as gardens and parks in urban areas as well as forests and forest edges.

Way of life

Queens appear from early April to mid-May, workers from late April / early May to mid-October. Young queens and drones can be found from mid-August to the end of October. The queens produce a high to medium low humming sound.

Shortly after the first nectar intake, the queen starts looking for suitable places to build nests. It flies just above the vegetation, for example at the edge of the forest, and examines cavities such as holes in the ground or niches under dead wood and in tufts of grass. The species is both nest builder and nest maker, and the nest can be created both above and below ground. Old mouse nests are preferred, but bird nests or nesting boxes are also colonized. You can also find nests in stables and sheds.

First the queen collects moss, grass and the like and bites it into pieces in order to form a small, hollow ball, the walls of which are partially glued and sealed with wax. Then an approximately five millimeter large bowl is made from brown wax and filled with pollen. 5 to 15 eggs are placed on the container and then closed. Another 20 millimeter high bowl is filled with nectar, which serves as a separate food reserve for bad weather days. The larvae hatch after three to five days and feed on the pollen supply. The queen is building as Pocket Maker to the first well of small wax bags, which are also filled with pollen and then closed and the larvae eat into from the side into the. Little by little, the addition of the pockets creates a blistered structure with a diameter of around 20 millimeters. After about a week, the larvae, which were previously sociable, are fully grown and spin separately into yellowish, parchment-like cocoons . They are initially covered on the outside with wax from the container, but this wax is used by the queen to build further bowls. The adult bumblebees hatch after one to two weeks. Due to the initially poor supply situation, these are relatively small, only reach about half the length of the queen's body and also have no functioning ovaries. Animals hatching later are significantly larger. These animals take over the further nest building and brood care, whereby the queen devotes herself solely to egg production and does not leave the nest anymore. From August, rarely before, the first fully developed females hatch, simultaneously with drones. Drones, which all hatch from unfertilized eggs as larvae, can also develop from eggs that workers have laid. The nest reaches the maximum population size of 60 to 150 individuals in August and has a diameter of up to 15 to 20 centimeters. Shortly after the peak, the population declines sharply until the queen, and with her the entire nest, usually dies in September. Occasionally colonies persist into October / November. Only the most recently hatched females survive and mate with males. They go in search of a sheltered place to overwinter and finally, as young queens, found a new state in spring.

The most important foliage plants of this polylectic species include: dead nettles , black nettles , motherwort , glandular balsam , cabbage thistle , sweet peas , red clover , white clover , knapweed , monkshood , thistles , multicolored hollow tooth , currants and fruit trees.

supporting documents

literature

  • Heiko Bellmann : bees, wasps, ants. Hymenoptera of Central Europe . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co KG, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-440-09690-4 .
  • Eberhard von Hagen, Ambros Aichhorn: Bumblebees. determine, settle, multiply, protect . Fauna Verlag, Nottuln 2003, ISBN 3-935980-28-0 .
  • Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. Central European species, way of life, observation. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. Central European species, way of life, observation. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Heiko Bellmann : Bees, wasps, ants. Hymenoptera of Central Europe . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-440-09690-4 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Eberhard von Hagen, Ambros Aichhorn: Hummeln. determine, settle, multiply, protect . Fauna Verlag, Nottuln 2003, ISBN 3-935980-28-0 .

Web links

Commons : Ackerhummel  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files