I’ve been worried about the native bees. So far this spring we’ve had very few nice days, and I haven’t seen many native bees. Today, though, when the skies cleared for a few moments, I saw this big bumble in the azalea bush. I actually heard it long before a saw it–a deep, rumbling buzz you couldn’t mistake for anything else.
Bumble bee on azalea.
I saw some of those bumbles working on our lilacs this week. They are about as big as my thumb, right?
They are huge!
Hi Rusty,
June 1st, 7:30 am, I was passing under a male persimmon and for the first time noticed it was blooming. Bumblebees were numerous in the tree and several were on the ground working the fallen blooms (must be good).
Hi Rusty,
Do bumble bees compete with honey bees for nectar?
Elias,
All bees compete with each other to some extent, but different species favor different plants and some are better equipped to handle certain flower types. Long-tongued bees, for example, can get nectar from trumpet-shaped flowers the short-tongued bees can’t handle. Honey bees and bumble bees both forage on clover, so you could say they compete for clover nectar; but honey bees seldom go for rhododendron while bumble bees seem to like it. Of course the whole competition thing is made more complicated because there are the other 20,000 of bees (worldwide) that also are taking their share.
Bumbles remind me of English Bulldogs. Clumsy
Bee on my white azalea, 20 May 2019 so unusual never seen this before will it come back?
Silvia,
The azalea? Probably. The bee? Probably not.