The first bumblebee of the year flies past like an animated boot brush.
The first bumblebee of the year flies past like an animated boot brush. It's a huge queen of the buff-tailed bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, looking as big as a mouse as it drones about the allotment. It comes and goes several times as we're digging, but I can never quite see where it goes, or what flowers it might be visiting.
In fact, this isn't the first bumblebee I've seen this year, just the first living one. Twice now, we've found dead ones crushed on the pavement on the way to school in the morning. Examined carefully in the hand of nearly four-year-old, we discussed what could have happened to them, and what funeral arrangements might be appropriate.
This is a vulnerable time for these popular and fascinating insects. Having spent several months hidden in hibernation in some dry secluded spot, the queens, with a store of sperm from autumn matings, venture out to an uncertain spring weather pattern, which is as unpredictable as any of the many other dangers they face from predators, disease and parasites.
For the first few weeks they must forage alone, feeding the first batch of grubs through to maturity. If the queen dies, eaten by a bird, caught by mould, or trodden underfoot as she struggles to get airborne one cool March morning, the colony is ended. Only when that initial cohort of larvae emerge as workers is some of the pressure taken from her furry shoulders.
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