Bumblebee
Bombus lucorum
A pollinator that shivers to warm itself up
Bumblebees are round, fuzzy, social bees whose flight comes with a deep, low buzz. By shivering its flight muscles to warm up, it can leave the nest on cold mornings and in early spring before honeybees can fly, making it the most reliable pollinator of alpine meadows and northern springs.
Key figures
- Length
- Queens about 19–22 mm, workers about 11–17 mm
- Life cycle
- A colony lasts one season; in late autumn only mated new queens survive winter alone
- Habitat
- Temperate grassland and alpine meadows, often nesting in abandoned rodent burrows
- Diet
- Feeds on nectar and pollen; short-tongued species bite through the base of the corolla to rob nectar
- Heat generation
- Before takeoff it shivers its flight muscles to raise its chest temperature to around 30°C
- Wingbeat
- Beats its wings about 130–240 times a second, which is why the buzz sounds so deep
Life cycle
Egg → Larva → Pupa (cocoon) → Adult (queen/worker/drone)
Ecological role
Bumblebees tolerate cold, visit flowers frequently, and stay loyal to a single flower species on each trip, making them key pollinators of alpine meadows and early temperate spring; many countries now breed them commercially for greenhouse pollination, while wild populations face pressure from pesticides and grassland degradation.
Did you know
Tomato anthers work like a salt shaker, releasing pollen only under vibration. A bumblebee bites the anther and buzzes its thorax to shake the pollen loose — buzz pollination, a trick honeybees never learned.
Range
From Europe to Siberia, the mountains of northern China, and northeastern meadows
Status
Common, though some related species are declining regionally
Anatomy
- Fuzz — Dense as a coat, it keeps the bee warm and also picks up pollen through static cling
- Pollen Basket — A smooth concave patch on the hind tibia, ringed with long hairs that form a cargo hold — the pollen basket (corbicula)
- Wing — The flight muscles do not pull the wings directly; they flex the thorax at high frequency to drive them instead
- Compound Eye — Can detect ultraviolet and polarized light, so it can still find its way on overcast days
- Antenna — Can smell the scent mark a previous visitor left behind on a petal
- Abdomen — The sting at the tip has no barb and can be used repeatedly, though it is rarely drawn
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