15 Facts About Bumblebees That Will Fascinate You!
Bumblebees are fascinating creatures. They are truly amazing and have been studied much over the years. Therefore, here are some facts about them that will fascinate you:
The biggest bumblebee in the world is the giant bumblebee called “flying mice”. It lives in South America.
Bumblebees swing their wings 200 times per second. This is very helpful when it gets hot in their nests.
They are covered in an oil that makes them waterproof.
Bumblebees can sting more than once before they die, which also differs them from the honeybees.
Bumblebees live in a nest as a family. They are among the most social creatures in the animal kingdom.
When the bumblebee grows fully, the male bees fly off and never come back to their nests. Unlike them, the queen bumblebees fly off too, but they come back at night.
Bumblebees leave smelly footprints on flowers. This is how they let other bees know that they do not need to waste their time and look for pollen on this flower. Other than this, the footprints also serve in helping bumblebees to find their way back home.
The queen bee searched for a nest and once she finds the perfect spot she collects pollen and nectar from flowers and leys the eggs in the nest. Then, for two weeks, she lays on the eggs and shivers to keep warm. She leaves the eggs only in order to collect more pollen.
Each bumblebee nest has around 400 members. On the other hand, honeybee hives have around 60.000 bees.
Bumblebees have a really fast metabolism. Because of this, they must eat almost all the time
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Different species of bumblebees have different tongue length. Thus, they all feed differently from flowers of various shapes.
New queen bumblebees hibernate. In order to prepare for hibernation, she fills up on pollen and nectar. After this, she finds a hole in the ground and stays there for a long time, having long winter’s sleep. She leaves her mother queen bee and the worker bees behind to die in the nest. After the hibernation, she builds a nest close to the ground. Also, she immediately starts looking for flowers and collecting nectar and pollen.
Worker bumblebees perform all the chores around the nest. They guard and clean it, collect nectar and pollen for them and the other bees as well.
Queen bees control the genetics of their offspring. To have female bumblebees, the queen uses sperm that she previously stores in her ovaries from last summer’s mating.