Trughummel
| Trughummel | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Bombus mendax | ||||||||||||
| Gerstäcker , 1869 |
The Trughummel ( Bombus mendax ) is a kind of the bumblebees ( Bombus ). It owes its “deceptive” German name to its color variants, the black bumblebees resemble the stone bumblebee , the light bumblebees resemble the mountain bumblebee .
Habitat and Distribution
Widespread in Europe, in the Pyrenees and Alps on moist slopes between 1500 m and 2800 m altitude. A colony comprises around 80–150 animals. The active flight time is from mid-April to the end of October. Only one generation is produced per year (univoltin). Trughummeln nest underground in abandoned mouse nests (nest-makers).
Mark
The queens have a body length of 18 to 20 mm, the workers 14 to 17 mm and the drones 15-18 mm. The queen makes a high-pitched humming sound. This long-nosed species is exceptionally a pollen storer , but the collected pollen is stored in specially made pollen cells that are separate from the brood cells. The nest gives off a very pleasant scent. The Trughummel is said to be easily irritable.
food
Like all bumblebees, the deer bumblebee feeds on nectar and their larvae on pollen. Her main ornamental plants include: crocuses , monkshood and alpine sweet clover .
Danger
The illusion Hummel applies in Germany due to a declining population trends over the last 20 years as endangered .
literature
- Eberhard von Hagen: Bumblebees: determine, settle, multiply, protect. Natur-Verl., Augsburg 1990. ISBN 3-89440-546-5
Individual evidence
- Eberhard von Hagen: Bumblebees: determine, settle, multiply, protect . P. 224
- Trughummel at wildbienen.de