Seldom-disturbed hillsides covered with grass or stone are preferred sites for nesting and overwintering. Most bumble bees nest in the ground, many in small colonies and others as solitary bees. Food and Habitat:īumble bees need large amounts of pollen and nectar, and species vary in the length of their tongues, which affects their ability to feed from various flowers. ![]() Instead of entering the blossom, bumble bees vibrate it to shake out a pollen reward. Vegetables with self-fertile flowers including beans, peas, peppers and tomatoes benefit from sonication, or buzz pollination, by bumble bees. Somewhat clumsy because of their size, bumble bees may collide with you in the garden, but they do not sting unless squashed. Here's how you can do your part to help pollinators in your own backyard.Worldwide in temperate climates Description:īig, buzzy bees with black and yellow fur coats are bumble bees. Therefore it’s important that bees have a variety of flowers, "so they have the best chance of finding what they need." Little is known about minerals content in pollen and nectar, except that they contain "trace amounts," says Bonoan. ![]() (Related: " For the First Time Bees Declared Endangered in the U.S.") In autumn, when there are fewer plants available, bees visit puddles, bird baths, and compost piles to satisfy their nutrient needs, lead author Rachael Bonoan, a Tufts doctoral candidate, says by email. But the insects do seek out nutrients such as salt, according to a recent study in the journal Ecological Entomology. Pollinators' global value is estimated at $200 billion per year in the U.S., it's about $15 billion annually.įor all the delicious fruits and crops they give us, honeybees themselves have few genes for taste. A Bouquet of FlowersĪll this work provides a whopping portion of what we eat: Honeybees, along with native pollinators like butterflies, pollinate a third of the food consumed worldwide, says Rangel. A flower that has just been visited by another pollinator "loses a little bit of that negative charge," allowing the would-be pollinator to save time and move on. "Bees have a positive electrostatic charge to their bodies," says Ellsworth, "like when you scrape your feet across a carpet."įlowers have a negative charge, so before a bee lands on one, it uses its body hairs to feel the strength of a flower's charge. Beeing Positiveīut bees aren’t just persuasive. That’s a level of intimacy you’ll think about over your next blueberry smoothie. To pollinate some plants, such as blueberries and cranberries, bees "wrap their legs around the flower" and buzz that note, causing release of pollen "like salt from a shaker," Ellsworth says. "It’s the 'hey' in ' Hey Jude,' and it causes the flower to explosively release pollen." TIL: A Bumblebee's Buzz Is Basically a Superpower (Related: " First Bumblebee Declared Endangered in the U.S.")īumblebees "can unhinge their wings from their wing muscles and vibrate their bodies," Ellsworth says, making that buzzing sound you hear when they’re on a flower in the tone of middle C. ![]() Pollen easily gets stuck to bees' fuzzy bodies and carried from flower to flower, Ellsworth says, but bumblebees and some other wild bees do something honeybees don’t do: buzz pollination. ( Read more about the decline of the honeybee.) Plan B The nectar mixes with an enzyme, and "the bees regurgitate that when they get back to the colony," condensing the nectar into honey. So says Denise Ellsworth, an entomologist at Ohio State University who describes how bees suck nectar from plants, which then goes into a "honey stomach," an organ for storing food before it's digested. Honeybees make extra because "they live in places where there are seasons," Rangel says, storing and living on honey in winter when there’s no nectar to eat. (Related: " Obama Unveils Plan to Reverse Alarming Decline of Honeybees.") There are seven species of honeybees, which include Asian, African, and European honeybees, the latter of which we mostly see in the U.S. Of the estimated 20,000 species of bees worldwide, only a few hundred species make honey, and only honey bees make a surfeit of the sweet stuff says Juliana Rangel, entomologist at Texas A&M University. Weird Animal Question of the Week buzzed off to find out. So he came to us with this question: "Are honeybees the only bees that make honey?" Like many people, reader Todd Barczak is increasingly interested in where his food comes from.
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