Following a bumblebee

I was walking around in my yard, checking out all the violets sprouting up in my lawn, when I saw a bumblebee flying around close to the ground. I noticed that it was frequently stopping, but not at any of the violets or dandelions as I would have expected, instead just to crawl around on the ground for a brief bit before moving along. I decided to follow this cute fuzzy insect to see if I could figure out what it was doing, since it did not seem to be stopping at flowers for any nectar. It was pretty warm out (mid 70s), nice and sunny, but a little breezy. I began to wonder if it was either looking for a nest or a place to start a new nest in a hole in the ground. It darted all around my yard, stopping every so often to inspect the ground, and I followed it until it worked its way over to my neighbor's.

I never did get to figure out exactly what it was doing. When I tried to research this further online, I learned that bumblebees live in colonies, and only the queen survives the winter by burrowing for shelter, emerging in the spring to lay eggs. This led me to more questions - would this have been the queen that I saw? Is it too early in the year for a queen's offspring to be fully grown? I saw another bumblebee of the same size also exhibiting similar behavior. Would there be more than one queen in an area as small as my yard? I have more research to do :).

הועלה ב-מאי 5, 2020 03:16 לפנה"צ על ידי danivaill