e seem to have a broad variety of bees in our garden, and whilst pratting about photographing them I started to idly wonder what species they were, in that weird science-y way that sometimes comes over me... Thus, I found my new favourite toy from the always gothically mysterious, Natural History Museum: Bombus. Amazing. And so -
this is B. terrestris, the Buff-tailed bumblebee. Probably a worker but possibly a queen; the tail is quite yellowish.
This is a southerly specific bee, B.hypnorum or Tree bumblebee. Can't decide between queen, worker or male from this shot.
The wings are in the way here and its a bad angle for looking at his/her bottom... I know it's not terrestris by comparison so on that basis I'm going with B. lucorum the White-tailed bumblebee, but I'm not convinced.
the best thing about this game is that I know there's other species in the garden yet to be photographed...
Oh i love bees so much - the NHM link is SO great! Makes me very happy - they are surely the best insects in the world, i shall look forward to seeing which types you get....
ReplyDeleteI've taken to staring at our bumble bees much more closely this year. Previously it was 'oh look a bumble bee'. This year I've noticed a number of different Bombus species zipping around the lavender and ceanothus...I just needed to slow down long enough to look. Have you seen Val's blog over at 'Pencil and Leaf'? She does the most lovely sketches with interesting information on a number of bee species...mostly British species, and has an exhibition through June at the Lumen Gallery in London if you are interested in learning more.
ReplyDeleteTop tip CVF, thanks for that! Definitely will be checking that out.
ReplyDelete(The Natural History Museum never fails to amaze me!)
love your blog... so interesting because we're almost positive there are no honey bees around this year... lots of bumbles but no honey's.. we even have a small nest of bumble bees in the front garden which we're very happy about, they love the delphiniums...
ReplyDeleteanyway, rambling now.. great pics!
Stunning picture of the flowers, will definitely make my day. Keep posting.
ReplyDelete