Are These Honey Bees? Bumble Bee Edition
I love to hear from folks about bees. If you just want to talk bees I am all ears, if you’ve got bees that are bothering you and you don’t want to harm them I love to hear that and to help remove them safely. That being said, I get a lot of calls for insects that are not honey bees. I encourage people to always call, I am happy to help identify the insects you are sharing your space with. However if you are a bit more of a do it yourselfer and want to try identifying flying insects yourself I hope that this will provide a helpful guide to get an idea of who might have made a nest in or around your home.
The key factors in identifying insects are their appearance, location, and behavior. There are lots of different species of wasps, bees and other insects but none look and behave quite like the honey bee. Over the next few blog posts I will be outlining different types of insects that I often get calls about.
Today’s Entry: Bumble Bees
If someone called me and asked me without any other hints that they had bees visiting the flowers in their lawn or garden I would guess they are seeing bumble bees. We have a lot of bees at our house in Gray, Maine and while there are hundreds of thousands of honey bees in our hives, we still see a lot of bumble bees visiting our flowers alongside the domestic bees.
The Honey Bee in this picture is smaller, thinner and a darker orange color. The bumble bee is more of a yellow color, plumper, larger and has a fully black abdomen.
While they look similar to the untrained eye. Bumble bees and honey bees are very distinct from one another in how they look, act and structure their colonies.
Appearance: As you can see in the picture above, bumble bees are often larger than honey bees. It’s not uncommon for them to be 2-3 times the size of a honey bee. Furthermore while all bees appear “fuzzy” when to compared to wasps and hornets, bumble bees take this fuzziness to the extreme. Bumble bees can appear down right shaggy and when your garden is in full bloom those hairs can become covered in pollen.
When comparing their coloration, the easiest thing to look for in a bumble bee is their dark Abdomen, the furthest segment of their body from their head. While some honey bees sport very dark abdomens as well, bumble bees are much more reliably black thorough the entire abdomen and without stripes. Where they are not black bumble bees tend to have a bright, almost florescent yellow color. Think about when you see cartoons or children’s toys of bees. Those are usually bright bumble bee yellow. Honey bees by comparison run the gamut from rusty oranges, to almost browns to more muted yellow colors.
Behavior: Bumble bees get their name from the distinctive way they seem to crash around a flower patch. They often seem ravenous for honey and pollen. If you see a bee plowing into flowers, weighing them down with their weight and then frantically rooting around within the flower, you’re probably looking at a bumble bee. They have a manner of moving that is equal parts highly industrious and irresistibly adorable.
By comparison the honey bee tends to be more restrained, less bumping and frantic movement. An efficiency to nectar collection that lacks some of the bumble bee’s wild abandon.
Hive Size and Location: If you are still on the fence about whether you are looking at a honey bee hive or a bumble bee hive the nature of the nest should settle the question easily. Much has been written on this blog about what a honey bee nest looks like and it is unmistakably different from a bumble bee hive. While honey bees in nature live in colonies of tens of thousands inside protected cavities in trees or human structures, bumble bees live in smaller groups of a few hundred in burrows in the ground. Activity outside a honey bee nest is intense, with workers coming and going in a constant stream. While a bumble bee hive can be easy to miss with just a single insect coming and going at a time periodically. Inside, the hives themselves look completely different. Honey bees for the famous combs and fill them with honey. Bumble bees create a structure that looks like clusters of small brown bubbles. Their hives have a bit of an alien look and are very cool to observe in person if ever you get the chance.
Bumble bee hives are quite hard to detect because of this and it is considered a sign of good luck to find one. To that end if anyone reading this has a bumble bee hive that they know the location of, please get in touch with us. We would love to come out and document it to help supplement this article with more images of bumble bees and their homes.
What to do about a bumble bee colony?
We at Southern Maine Bee Removal do not relocate bumble bee hives. It is a very delicate process and success rates are not high even when done carefully. That being said, bumble bees are not aggressive and unless badly provoked will not pose a risk to you your family or animals. They can sting but I do not know anyone who has ever been stung by one. Our advise is always to leave them where they are if at all possible. If you really can’t tolerate the bees where they are, you can also relocate the entrance of their hive. Do this by covering the entrance with a piece of tubing at least 1” in diameter and running that tubing to a location that is less bothersome to you. The bees will quickly adapt to this new entrance and will live undisturbed coming and going from the new exit you have created for them. Please use caution if you reroute their entrance. I always recommend handling bees of any kind in a bee suit. If you don’t think you are up to the task, don’t put yourself and the bees at risk. As always, feel free to call us to discuss any bees you find.
