While attending the garden I heard an unusual buzzing sound, not the normal flight sound of a bumblebee or a honeybee. While trying to pinpoint the sound I noticed it coming from the flowers, upon futher inspection I noticed it coming from the bumblebees!

They appear to be grabbing on to the flower's tubular anthers and start to vibrate their wings (use flight muscles) at high speeds to vibrate loose the pollen. I tried recording it on video but our fuzzy friend was quite fast in jumping from flower to flower. Apperently this techinque is unique to bumblebees and not all flowers require this method of pollination.

According to this article from Nature.com this is an important way of pollinating several types of crops like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and blueberries.

My betrothed and I found who I'm fairly sure is a young buff-tailed bumblebee queen close to death on the pavement. I'm fairly sure she's a queen as her tail tip is a pale yellow rather than a bright white, and she's huge, about 2.5cm. She was at risk of being trampled where she was and hardly moving! I named her Vienna as we were listening to the Ultravox song when we found her.

All I had on me was an apple so I gave her pieces of that, she drank and drank from it but still seemed weak, so I took her home for the evening, made her a little tofu box hotel and gave her a sugar syrup soaked kitchen towel in a bottle cap. She drank and drank and drank the sugar syrup and went to sleep.

This morning I opened the box and moved it into sunlight and she started bumbling around much more energetically, so I took her to the local park. I found a north facing bank of loose soil, at the base of some trees and shrubs. Apparently a pretty perfect hibernaculum spot for her.

I could watch insects going about their lives for hours. I found it really hard to say goodbye as I don't know if she'll be alright, but I hope I've given her the best shot. I've always adored bumblebees and have a tattoo of one in honour of my late mum who loved them more than anything. Rescuing Vienna led me to research them a lot more and the love only grows, like I didn't know that bees dream 😭

I thought I should share this story here, I've rescued bees out and about many times but never had an overnight guest, let alone royalty! She was just so cute

A chill be I found who had stacks of pollen. Hardworking kid it looks like.

Sharing a photo of a honey bee visiting a flower. I really like seeing bees moving from flower to flower while collecting pollen and nectar. They are such interesting little creatures.

What flowers do you usually see honey bees visiting in your area?

The garden is alive with all kinds of bees and other pollinators, this little guy was chilling on a zinnia this morning.

My son took this very cool photo and just sent it to me. Loved it so much and thought I would share his work. (He is not a professional photographer- but loves taking photos)

Near the end of the video, there's one that takes up half a bunch of flowers while the other bumblebees are tiny

Two bees just enjoying themselves

Bees and other pollinators love my basil. I noticed today a dead bee on one of the flowers. You can see it dangling in the center of the video. Another bee to the left appears to be observing it from different angles. Is it recording the location of the dead bee somehow?

I've noticed some giant new bees in my garden. They're more than twice the size of the Mason bees. About an inch long with a very yellow and fuzzy abdomen. They are not aggressive and don't seem to care about the other pollinators on the same flower. What are they and are they invasive or not?

I was watching a bee pollinate a bunch of flowers in my backyard and I have a question about it. It was going to every single yellow flower, and I mean EVERY single one, the little guy worked really hard to pollinate a ton of them. When it was done with the yellow ones I assumed it would go to the red and purple ones that were also there, but it seemed to strictly avoid those colours. Why would this be?

I looked it up and Google says bees enjoy many flower colours, so not sure why this bee avoided the reds and purples.

Fun fact: the genus Bombus (bumblebees) evolved in the Himalayas during a period of global cooling (big! fuzzy!) and then crossed over to the Americas over a land bridge across Beringia during the Miocene Interchange around 20 million years ago. In other words they are basically the bee version of woolly mammoths — but did it first by 19 million years so woolly mammoths are basically the elephant version of bumblebees.

Another fun fact: bee wings generate a positive static charge with friction and then transfer it to the (negatively charged) flowers they visit...they can tell if another bee has visited a flower in the last couple of minutes because they sense changes in the flower's electrical field! Super effective way to avoid competition for nectar that results in more effective pollination. Nature is rad.

Just painted this for a solo show in Santa Fe while thinking about how psychedelic ergot has been growing on flowers since the Cretaceous Period and therefore bumblebees have always, always had to watch where they sip.

16” x 20” — acrylic on canvas

#savethebees

Saw this guy in Colorado and she was huge. Anyone know the species?

the bumblebees are loving these!

Two different bees but I am awful at identifying bee species. Not sure what species these could be or if they're both the same species. I have many different kinds of bees that come into my yard.

Located in NW Florida, USA.

Hi all! I was snapping photos of my garlic chives in my backyard in PA and got some bee photos. I want to refrain from asking AI so could y'all identify the species? If y'all have an ID if you could say the photo number so I can put it on my google sheet that'd be great, thanks all!!!