Bumblebee (disambiguation)

Picture Notes: As spring time is here once again, it reminded me of this picture (above) (cropped from the sot below) (Fig. 01) that I took on a morning visit to our pool back on 04/20/2009. With the exception of ladybugs and butterflies, bumblebees are perhaps one of the only insects that almost everyone likes. Maybe because they almost always stick to their job of drinking nectar and gathering pollen, and very rarely attack. They are large, hairy social insects with a lazy buzz and clumsy, bumbling flight. Most of them are black and yellow, though some are all black.

Description: A Bumble Bee (also spelled as bumblebee) is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae. There are over 250 known species, existing primarily in the Northern Hemisphere.  They are a social insect that are characterized by black and yellow body hairs, often in bands. Some species can have orange or red on their bodies, or may be entirely black. (Fig. 01)

Their most obvious characteristic is the soft nature of the hair (long, branched setae) called pile, that covers their entire body, making them appear and feel fuzzy. They are best distinguished from similarly large, fuzzy bees by the form of the female hind leg, which is modified to form a shiny concave surface that is bare, but surrounded by a fringe of hairs used to transport pollen. In similar bees, the hind leg is completely hairy, and pollen grains are wedged into the hairs for transport. Like their relatives the honey bees, bumble bees feed on nectar and gather pollen to feed their young. Bothe queen and worker bumblebees can sting, tough you don't often see stings as bumblebees are reluctant to use them. One common, yet incorrect, assumption is that the buzzing sound of bees is caused by the beating of their wings. The sound is actually the result of the bee vibrating its flight muscles, and this can be achieved while the muscles are decoupled from the wings — a feature known in bees but not other insects. This is especially pronounced in bumblebees, as they must warm up their bodies considerably to get airborne at low ambient temperatures.