Without pollinators like the bumblebee and her many sister species, we wouldn't have much to eat. Scientists estimate bees pollinate more thousands of species of commercial crops and innumerable native plants. And the bumblebee may be the hardest-working pollinator of all.
Welcome to this week's edition of Something Wild. I'm Rosemary Conroy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
This is a great time of year to be outside enjoying nature's wealth and beauty. For the most part, biting insects are on the wane. Lucky for us, though, the hardworking members of the bee family are still on the job.
Why lucky? Well, without pollinators like the bumblebee and her many sister species, we wouldn't have much to eat. Scientists estimate that bees pollinate more than 2500 species of commercial crops and innumerable native plants. Some claim bees are worth billions of dollars to North American farmers for their pollination services.
And I'd like to nominate the bumblebee as being the hardest-working pollinator of all.
Unlike honeybees that over-winter with hordes of honey surrounded by their family, a bumblebee must start from scratch each spring.
The queen bee emerges from her lonely winter hibernation on the first warm days of spring. After fattening up on pollen and nectar from our earliest wildflowers, she makes a nest. This is usually an abandoned tunnel or mouse den.
Then the real work begins. As a single mom, she does it all- foraging for food, laying eggs, brooding the young, and, of course, keeping the nest clean.
Once her worker daughters get bigger, they will take over the job of foraging. Those are the ones that we are seeing buzzing about right now. The queen stays in the nest, laying eggs and building up her tiny colony of busy pollinators.
As the season progresses into early fall, new queens will be born. After mating, they will disperse to find places to over-winter themselves. The rest of the colony, their job complete, soon dies off- until next spring, of course, when the new queen bees start their reigns, buzzing about our gardens and fields once more. Long live the queen!
Something Wild is a joint production of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, New Hampshire Audubon and New Hampshire Public Radio. For Something Wild, I'm Rosemary Conroy.
