Bumblebee on Hebe in January, in the County Roads, East Finchley

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, as I sit in the office gazing out of the window idly and trying to work out where the squirrel that just crossed the road is going, I often startle as a bumblebee flies headlong into the window, before recovering and heading off over the roof. What chunky chappesses they are! At this time of year, most of them are queens, coming out of hibernation and gathering nectar for themselves, and pollen for the larvae hatching out of the first of their eggs.

At this time of year, you might also see a bumblebee who seems to be ‘grounded’. What to do? First up, just watch for a minute unless the bee is in immediate danger of being trampled on or squashed. The one below looked as if she was dead, but when I approached her she stuck out a leg in a ‘don’t mess with me’ gesture. Research by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has found that the queens spend a lot of their time hanging out in the grass and having a rest, so you only need to intervene if the bee has been hanging  out for more than an hour and a half.

If you absolutely have to move a bee, I would look around to see if there is anything in flower that you can pop her on to – nothing beats natural nectar. If she starts to feed, job done. So many plants are not bee friendly though, especially bedding plants such as petunias and bizzy lizzie and pelargoniums, so if there’s nothing about, make up a 50/50 solution of water to white sugar (not brown sugar, and definitely not honey) and offer that on a spoon or a bottle top. Bumblebee Conservation are very keen that you don’t bring the bumblebee indoors ‘to warm up’ (I must admit that I didn’t appreciate this) – rapid heating is very bad for a bumblebee, which is adapted to living in the tundra, and is more in danger from over-heating than chilling.

By the way, I’m sure that all of us (me included) have done ‘the wrong thing’ when trying to help a bumblebee, so this article is very helpful.

Grounded or just resting?

Another thing that people often get very excited about when they see bumblebees are the little mites that are often clinging to their fur. Sometimes people even get a paintbrush to try to remove them.

Bumblebee with mites (Photo from https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bee-faqs/bumblebee-mites/)

But these little guys are actually just hitching a lift – they’re known as phoretic mites, and they hang around on flowers waiting for a bumblebee to bumble past. Once one arrives, they all run on (much like me getting on the 102 bus) and disembark on arrival at the bumblebee nest, where they eat the wax and detritus that accumulates. They also munch up some of the tiny insects that live in the nest, but don’t harm the larvae or the adult bees. Then, when the mites ‘come of age’ they jump back onto another bumblebee to be transported back to a flower, where they wait for another bee to come along.

One of the many things I learned from Kiera Chapman’s piece in Nature’s Calendar was that bumblebee queens don’t lay their eggs in the same place that they hibernated. This actually makes perfect sense. The bees tend to choose north-facing sites that are safe from flooding for their hibernation spot – they don’t want to be woken up by it getting too hot as this will waste their fat reserves, and they need those to get through the winter. Once active, she finds a site such as a mouse barrow on a south-facing slope, builds a ball of wax and pollen and lays her eggs (fertilised during the previous year) into it. She then broods these eggs just like a chicken, using her body heat. It takes about 5 weeks for the larvae that emerge to become adult bees, and at this point they can go out and start foraging for nectar and pollen, so that more worker bees can be nurtured. An average bumblebee nest has only about 500 members, compared to the tens of thousands in a honeybee hive. Towards the end of the season, some of the eggs will turn into males and new queens, so that the cycle can begin all over again.

White-tailed bumblebees on Cirsium atropurpureum

It’s all very well being adapted for tundra, but climate change poses a particular threat to bumblebees – overheating. As winters get warmer, they are emerging from hibernation earlier, and often can’t find any food, as we’ve seen. This is a great reason to get planting early crocuses, mahonia, muscari, fritillaries and other early-flowering plants, and to leave the dandelions alone. What it’s more difficult to manage, though, is the soaring heat of summer. Scientists have predicted that many bee species will move northwards or to higher altitudes, but the importance of decent bumblebee habitat – lots of flowering plants and places to hibernate and nest – can’t be overstated. Bumblebee Conservation has been running its ‘Bee The Change‘ campaign for a while now, with lots of suggestions for ways to help out even if it’s just through a windowbox or encouraging a change in verge management or municipal planting. There’s lots of useful information on the site, so it’s well worth a look!

Bumblebee on Hemp Agrimony