Bumblebees

[boca]

I have a bumblebee (bombus terrestris) colony bought from a rearing company.

I have put a plexiglass cover on the top of the box and can watch what is going on inside. I see eggs, larvae, pupae, honey cups, pollen cups etc.

Can someone tell me how to distinguish the worker, male and queen cells and pupae from each other?

Thanks

 

[Russel]

I have a bumblebee (bombus terrestris) colony bought from a rearing company.

I have put a plexiglass cover on the top of the box and can watch what is going on inside. I see eggs, larvae, pupae, honey cups, pollen cups etc.

Can someone tell me how to distinguish the worker, male and queen cells and pupae from each other?

Thanks

Although this a beekeeping forum, it's primarily honeybees.
You answer maybe here Bumblebee conservation

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have a bumblebee (bombus terrestris) colony bought from a rearing company.

I have put a plexiglass cover on the top of the box and can watch what is going on inside. I see eggs, larvae, pupae, honey cups, pollen cups etc.

Can someone tell me how to distinguish the worker, male and queen cells and pupae from each other?

Thanks

There's no need. You shouldn't be interfering with them at all. Just have a quick look now and then if you must. I hope you have put the box somewhere sheltered and that your glass cover itself is covered up so that the colony is in the dark.
At this time of year you will see only the queen....she is large, and workers who are not much more than half her size. Not till the nest matures towards the end of summer will you see drones and queens being produced. The drones leave the nest and never return. The queens when mated will over winter and found new nests next spring.

 

[boca]

So if a newbie asked how to distinguish honeybee worker drone and queen cells the answer would be you don't need to know that.
That's a clever answer.

 

[Erichalfbee]

No not all all. Honey bees in beehived are managed. Bumblebees are wild

 

[Erichalfbee]

Sorry Boca, you are right, of course. I woke up with a grumpy head.
What I should have said was……
They are fascinating insects aren’t they?
The queen is much larger than her workers and they in turn are of different sizes. Some researchers think that this size variation reflects their role in the colony. 30% of the worker bees show no specialised function and some workers rather than becoming foragers, never leave the nest at all, but all can change their roles if emergency factors deem it necessary.
When the colony has reached its critical point in the early summer its dynamics change to producing the “next generation”. There is considerable overlap though with males,queens and workers being produced at the same time and unlike in the honey bee the B terrestris queen can largely control the production of daughter queens and she can delay their appearance by making large workers. The more workers there are the less the new queens have to risk their lives foraging to fatten up for hibernation.
Some nests never reach this reproductive phase and some go on to produce only males or only new queens.
Unlike the honeybee too eggs destined as future queens spend longer than workers in the pupal stage
You cannot really see any of this without breaking up the nest, Suffice to say that worker/drone/queen cells all look similar except in size.
Queen and drone rearing starts within a month of the first workers eggs being laid. The Bumblebee season is indeed a short one.
Drones leave the nest to forage on their own and to mate. They never return. Queens remain after mating and will often help tend the nest.
The new queens will find a place to hibernate, the old queen dies or in her decrepitude is evicted by the workers and some of them may go on to produce their own male offspring but soon the colony disintegrates and dies out. The males continue to forage outside the nest well into the autumn, these are the large slow Bumbles you see asleep on flowers. When food disappears they die.

You are lucky to have some of them to look at, enjoy their wonderful complicated lives.

 

[boca]

This is a picture of the nest (sorry for the reflection).

I know that the lifetime of the colony is short. I am afraid that this colony is in an advanced stage already rearing drones and queens. But all the cells look similar, though different size. Unlike honeybees, the cells are growing with the larvae inside.
I found a good introduction.
I would like to know in advance when the colony disintegrates, so I can order another one.
The nest is used in an exhibition, that's why it has to be replaced when declines.

 

[Finman]

.
Drones and queens will be reared in late summer.What ever it means in Italy.

 

[YorkshireBees]

No not all all. Honey bees in beehived are managed. Bumblebees are wild

Not strictly true, well I rescued a large Bumblebee nest from a building site last year and stuck them in a Poly Nuc where they quite happily lived out the rest of the summer.

They did leave a right mess behind!

 

[snelgrove]

I have a bumblebee (bombus terrestris) colony bought from a rearing company.

I have put a plexiglass cover on the top of the box and can watch what is going on inside. I see eggs, larvae, pupae, honey cups, pollen cups etc.

Can someone tell me how to distinguish the worker, male and queen cells and pupae from each other?

Thanks

Most colonies offered for sale are a sub species bombus terrestris audax another bombus terrestris dalmatinus is offered for sale and should not be released outside greenhouses. UK that is

 

[boca]

I specified explicitly that this is not a natural colony but produced in controlled environment. They are more managed than honeybees. They were never foraging previously, fed with sugar syrup and pollen collected by honeybees.
The season outside does not affect them. You can buy a full colony in January for pollination in a greenhouse.

Even in nature, in South-Europe queens establish new colonies in autumn, and you can find workers in winter and drones in spring.

http://www.atlashymenoptera.net/biblio/Coppee_Ph_D_complet.pdf
Ssp. calabricus Krüger 1958
This subspecies is found in Sicily and the Southern part of Italy (fig
s. 4 & 8), the queens and the workers occur in winter (pers. obs.)

Ssp. lusitanicus Krüger 1956
The distribution of lusitanicus extends from the Iberian Peninsula to SouthDwestern France, where it overlaps the terrestris distribution. It also occurs in Madeira and the Balearic Islands (figs 4 & 11). This subspecies is found all year long, with spring, autumn or winter generations (Rasmont, 1988; pers. obs.).

Nevertheless, the I am still looking for an answer. How can I distinguish worker, drone and queen cells?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Prof Dave Goulson is the chap who can tell you.
Why don't you drop him an email
[email protected]

 

[YorkshireBees]

I specified explicitly that this is not a natural colony but produced in controlled environment. They are more managed than honeybees. They were never foraging previously, fed with sugar syrup and pollen collected by honeybees.
The season outside does not affect them. You can buy a full colony in January for pollination in a greenhouse.

Even in nature, in South-Europe queens establish new colonies in autumn, and you can find workers in winter and drones in spring.


Nevertheless, the I am still looking for an answer. How can I distinguish worker, drone and queen cells?

A simple answer would be size!

I didn't keep any of the old nest that I had in the Poly Nuc but as I was putting it on the compost heap I could quite clearly see the difference in cell sizes.
Larger = male / queens
Smaller = workers

 

[boca]

Not that simple. The cells have not fixed size, but they are growing with the larva.
And there is no significant size difference between an adult worker and an adult male.

 

[Erichalfbee]

A simple answer would be size!


Larger = male / queens
Smaller = workers

You also get large workers.
The answer may be that there is no discernible difference.

I never knew there was such a thing as a bumblebee colony who's bees never ventured out at all to forage. That must change the way the nest develops.

What's the purpose of the exhibit, Boca?
No agenda....I'm just curious.

 

[boca]

I am working at a research institute. We have no direct research activity on bees but related fields like pollination, biodiversity etc. mainly with computer modeling.

Honeybee and bumblebee families are eye-catching objects to present the abstract sometimes boring studies.

I have seen today newborn queens. Workers are laying drone eggs. The end of the colony is approaching.

The book Bumblebees of DAVE GOULSON is available on archive.org.
on page 10 there is a picture showing how queen cells look like but no explanation.

 

[boca]

The bumblebee family has grown significantly. Since 2 weeks ago new queens are being born. I have not seen a single drone, maybe because of my untrained eye.
There are no more eggs or larvae, only pupae about to emerge, both worker and queen. I'm afraid this colony is going to complete soon its life-cycle.

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's wonderful.
There may not be any larvae but a maturing nest in itself is a thing of joy.
The drones depart never to return and spend their days eating and sleeping in flowers and looking for a mate.
Those queens will fatten up on summer flowers and start a new generation next Spring.

 

[Dared]

Have a nice size bumble bee nest in a bird box. Picked it out of someones compost bin a month ago so did not think it had much chance of surviving but gone from strength to strength

 

[snelgrove]

I put nest boxes in garden for them buried in ground would lover to see them nest no joy this year, I think the weather has taken its toll on them.