Nature · Insects & other invertebrates

Buff-tailed bumblebee

Queens from February; colonies now often winter-active in the south · queens to about 22 mm

Bombus terrestris — Apidae; one of Britain's 'Big Eight' bumblebees

Britain's commonest large bumblebee and the source of the classic identification headache: the queen has the buff tail the name promises, but her workers and males have white tails, making them all but inseparable from the white-tailed bumblebee. It has two golden-yellow bands, a short tongue, and nests underground in old rodent holes in colonies of several hundred. Its queens are among the first bumblebees out each year, and in southern England and in cities colonies now stay active through the winter on mahonia.

How to spot them

▸Two golden-yellow bands: one at the front of the thorax, one across the middle of the abdomen
▸Queen has a buff, yellow-brown tail; workers and males have white tails, sometimes with a narrow buff 'tea-stain' border
▸Large and bulky — the queen is Britain's biggest bumblebee
▸Short-tongued: it works open flowers readily and bites holes at the base of long tubular ones
▸Nests underground, often in an old mouse or vole hole, with colonies of around 350 workers

How to know it

Its queen has the tail its name promises; its workers and males have white ones, so recorders log them as 'white/buff-tailed workers'

Buff-tailed bumblebee — worker tails are usually inseparable from Bombus lucorum.

A narrow yellow-buff border where the abdomen meets the white tail, known to recorders as the tea-stain

Buff-tailed bumblebee worker — the tea-stain is the best available hint, when it shows at all.

Its short tongue means it bites a hole at the base of long tubular flowers instead of entering from the front

Buff-tailed bumblebee — nectar robbing.

Colonies of it are reared commercially by the million and shipped to glasshouses to shake pollen out of tomato flowers

Buff-tailed bumblebee — buzz pollination, which honey bees cannot do.

In southern England and in cities its nests now run right through the winter, its workers foraging on mahonia in December

Buff-tailed bumblebee — winter-active colonies, a recent and well-documented change.

Its specific epithet is the Latin for 'of the earth', from its underground nests

Buff-tailed bumblebee — Bombus terrestris.

Quick-fire facts

•Bombus terrestris: bombus is Latin for a buzzing or booming, terrestris 'of the earth'
•The Bumblebee Conservation Trust counts it among the 'Big Eight' common and widespread British bumblebees
•Nests are usually underground in old rodent holes and can hold around 350 workers
•The nesting period lasts three to four months; queens emerge from February and are among the first bumblebees of the year
•In southern parts of the UK and in cities further north, colonies are established in October and November and forage through the winter on mahonia and other winter-flowering plants
•It is bred commercially for glasshouse pollination, especially of tomatoes, which need buzz pollination — a bumblebee shakes pollen loose by vibrating its flight muscles
•The confusion species is the white-tailed bumblebee, Bombus lucorum: its queens have more lemon-yellow bands and a pure white tail, and its workers generally cannot be told apart from buff-tailed workers
•Only mated queens survive the winter in a normal, non-winter-active colony; the workers and males die

Drill it — 7 cards

1 / 7new card

Sources

Bumblebee Conservation Trust — Buff-tailed bumblebee
Paul D. Brock — Britain's Insects: A Field Guide to the Insects of Great Britain and Ireland