What Is The Yellow-Faced Bumblebee?

You might have heard of all sorts of bumblebees, from the honeybee right the way through to the carpenter bee. But one you might not have heard about is the yellow-faced bumblebee.

What Is The Yellow-Faced Bumblebee (1)

This bee is a very common bee in North America.

As you probably might have been able to tell by the name, this bee comes with a very distinctive yellow face. But what can you know about the yellow-faced bumblebee?

Well, we have done some investigating for you and discovered some amazing facts about it that you can read right now!

Fun Facts About The Yellow-Faced Bumblebee

1.  This Bumblebee Goes Underground

This type of bumblebee is what is known as a subterranean nester, basically, it burrows underground to create a nest. The queen is the first one to establish the hive, burrowing underground and then creating chambers.

At this point, the first generation of workers will hatch from her eggs and assist her with expanding the colony. The colony will last about a year, at which point a clutch of new queens are born.

They will then winter for a few months, eventually hatching and starting their own colony.

2.  They Can Tell Their Species

The yellow-faced bee can tell the difference between their own brood and the brood of other species of bee. The queen yellow-faced bee will incubate the young of other queens within the species but not the young of any other species.

3.  The Queen Helps To Forage

During the early stages of the Queen’s lifecycle, she will be largely concentrating on creating the hive and incubating the brood.

However, towards the end of the lifespan of the hive, when the number of worker bees dwindles, the queen herself will contribute to foraging efforts.

4.  This Bee Will Forage Based On Environmental Preferences

It doesn’t matter if a certain material is quite scarce in the area surrounding this bee’s hive, they will still forage for it. This is very different from other bees who will forage in proportion to the number of bees that there are in the hive itself.

This bee likes a wide range of pollen and it is suspected that it does this to get a varied range of vitamins.

Conclusion

We hope that this list of yellow-faced bee facts has whet your appetite and will inspire you to delve deeper into this creature and find out more about its traits and tricks.

Thomas Callaghan
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