Garden bumblebee
| Garden bumblebee | ||||||||||||
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Garden bumblebee on real toadflax |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Bombus hortorum | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1761) |
The garden bumblebee ( Bombus hortorum ) is a common species of bumblebee found in gardens, meadows, orchards and parks.
anatomy
The garden bumblebee wears a golden yellow band with a wide black area between the front and rear edges of the chest. The first tergite of the abdomen is also golden yellow, the middle limbs black and the end of the abdomen is hairy white. The queen is 18–26 mm long, the workers 11–16 and the drones 13–15 mm. The queen's wings are large, with a maximum wingspan of 40 mm, while the workers' wings are only 30 mm. Similar looking species are the dark bumblebee , heather bumblebee , the field bumblebee and the clay bumblebee .
Occurrence
The garden bumblebee occurs all over Europe. Their habitat are forest edges, adjacent meadows, orchards , parks and gardens in the settlement area as well as flood dams.
Foraging
The garden bumblebees belong to the long-trunked bumblebee species and therefore visit plants with long tubes, such as mint and butterflies . They can be found on meadow clover , monkshood , thistles , field beans and honeysuckle .
Reproduction and nest building
The nest is on or near the surface in the earth, but can also be built in abandoned bird and mouse nests, stables, barns, sheds and attics. An adult population consists of around 50 to 100 workers. The queens looking for nesting sites can be observed from March to mid-May, the workers from the beginning of May to the end of July, the drones from the end of June to the end of July, and a second generation until September. The queens from the first nest start their own nest in the same year. The overwintering queens come from this new nest.
photos
Garden bumblebee on a red foxglove
Garden bumblebee queen ( Bombus hortorum ) on blackberry
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Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Westrich: The wild bees of Baden-Württemberg . Special Part: The Genera and Species. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8001-3317-2 .
