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...
