Buff-tailed Bumblebee
Bombus terrestris
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Our biggest bumblebee, and increasingly seen on flowers in the middle of winter.
A large, robust bumblebee with two dirty-yellow bands and — on queens — a distinctly buff or off-white tail. Workers can have a whiter tail with a faint buff line, which makes them tricky to separate from white-tailed bumblebees. Buff-tails are abundant in gardens, farmland and waste ground around Dumfries, and queens are among the first bees on the wing each spring.
Behaviour
Buff-tails have a short tongue, so they favour open, shallow flowers, and they are notorious nectar robbers — biting a hole in the base of a long flower such as comfrey to reach nectar without pollinating it. Nests are underground, often in old rodent burrows, and can hold several hundred workers. In milder winters some colonies now stay active right through, which is a genuinely recent change.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Bees (Apidae)
- Size
- Queens 20–22 mm · our largest bumblebee
- Status
- Native; abundant and widespread
CC0, via Wikimedia Commons