{"id":580170,"date":"2021-04-01T12:26:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T16:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/?p=580170"},"modified":"2022-02-17T08:53:43","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T13:53:43","slug":"all-about-the-western-bumblebee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/bbtw_updates\/all-about-the-western-bumblebee\/","title":{"rendered":"All about the Western Bumblebee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The\nWestern Bumble Bee is a medium sized (1-2 cm) bumble bee that has a band of\nyellow hair across the thorax (i.e. the middle part of the bee, between the\nhead and the abdomen) at the base of the wings and almost always has a white-tipped\nabdomen. The Western Bumble Bee used to be one of the most common bumble bees\nfound in western Canada (ranging from southern British Columbia, across\nsouthern Alberta and into Saskatchewan), but recent population declines due to\nhabitat loss and fragmentation, pesticides, and competition with and diseases\nfrom agricultural bumble bees have made the species rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bumble\nbees do not live in hives, instead most bumble bees make their nests\nunderground, often using holes within decaying wood, openings in rotten logs,\ngrassy mounds, or abandoned rodent burrows. Each spring, mated queens emerge\nfrom hibernation and set out to find nest sites to begin a new colony. Once the\nqueen decides on a nest site, she lays eggs in the nest and goes out to forage\nfor nectar and pollen. The life cycle of the Western Bumble Bee has four\nstages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. After four days, the eggs hatch and the\nqueen feeds the larva on pollen and nectar. After two weeks, the bumble bee\nlarva spin cocoons and pupate. It takes two weeks for the pupae to develop and\nhatch into adults, and the whole process to get from egg to adult takes about\nfive weeks; this timeline can vary with temperature and food supply. The first\nadult bumble bees to emerge from the colony are female worker bees and they\ntake over the foraging duties from the queen, and are also now in charge of\nfeeding the larva. Later in the summer, once the colony has reached its maximum\nfor worker bees, it then begins producing male bees and potential new queens.\nThese males and new queens do not stay in the colony and instead they leave and\ngo mate with similar bees from other colonies. The new queens mate before going\ninto hibernation for the winter, so that when they emerge the next spring, they\ndon\u2019t need to bother finding a male and can get started laying eggs. The male\nbees, worker bees, and original queen all die in the fall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Western Bumble Bee is a generalist forager, which means that it can eat the nectar and pollen from many different types of flowers and is not dependent on a specific plant species for its food. Since the queens emerge early in the spring, the Western Bumble Bee needs early blooming flowers, as well as continued blooms through the summer and into the fall to ensure it has enough food to feed the colony for the entire time it is active. In addition, bumble bees need options in terms of different types of flowers to ensure that they get all the nutrients required to feed the growing baby bees (i.e. larva). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\nare three things you can do that will help the Western Bumble Bee, as well as\nother native pollinators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Plant flowers \u2013 the two main things to remember are that\n bumble bees need flowers from early spring until fall and that they need a\n variety of different types of flowers. Whenever possible, it is always\n better to plant flowers that are native to where you live, rather than\n species that come from elsewhere. Check out pollinator guides<\/a> to see what flowers are native\n to your area so you can make a list before going to the garden center.<\/li>
  2. Build a bumble bee house. Although bumble bees usually\n nest underground, sometimes they will use a bumble bee house instead.\n Plans for a bumble bee house can be found here<\/a> or here<\/a>, depending on which\n style of house you\u2019d like to make.<\/li>
  3. Adopt a Western Bumble Bee. Your adoption will help\n Earth Rangers support Nature Conservancy Canada as they work to restore\n this important species throughout southern Saskatchewan.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Many thanks to Sarah Ludlow from the Saskatchewan Region’s Conservation Science Team at the Nature Conservancy of Canada for writing this article.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Western Bumble Bee is a medium sized (1-2 cm) bumble bee that has a band of yellow hair across the thorax (i.e. the middle part of the bee, between the head and the abdomen) at the base of the wings and almost always has a white-tipped abdomen. The Western Bumble Bee used to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":580179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[931,425],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-580170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all","8":"category-bbtw_updates"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580170"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580537,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580170\/revisions\/580537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/US\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}