On a cool April day, as I walked in my neighborhood, a familiar sound made my heart leap. It was the friendly buzz of a bumble bee, the first I’d heard since last fall. It’s always such a joy when spring returns to New Hampshire; the first flowers start to poke up from the ground, and the grass begins to green. But it really is the “return” of the bumble bees that makes me feel like spring has truly arrived. Bumble bees don’t really return to New Hampshire, like many migratory birds and even some dragonflies do. They were here with us all winter, hibernating underground or in the leaf litter, waiting for the days to lengthen and the temperatures to warm just enough to come out and look for their first drink of nectar.
Most of us are familiar with the rotund, fuzzy shape of a bumblebee. There are ten species of these charismatic insects living in New Hampshire, a decline from many more species fifty plus years ago. Bumble bees are wild bees, and like the two hundred or so other species of wild bees in New Hampshire, they live alongside us in our gardens and fields, collecting nectar and pollen from spring through fall. What makes bumble bees different from many of these other wild bees is that they are social, and, similar to the honey bee, live in colonies of workers that are all laid by a single queen.
When spring arrives, bumble bees are some of the first bees to emerge from their winter rest, as they are able to cope with chilly spring mornings better than most other types of bee. If you see a bumble bee in mid-April, this is a newly emerged queen bee, and she is searching for a place to start her colony. She searches for an abandoned mouse hole, perhaps, or an area of loose dirt under the leaves. Her first task after locating her nesting place will be to collect some nectar and pollen, and then she will begin to form small wax pots in which to lay her eggs in her underground home.
All of these early eggs will be females. The queen bee is raising daughters to help with the work of the colony. Like honey bees, the workers are all female, and will be the labor force in the colony. The queen will travel out of the nest to collect nectar and pollen for this first batch of babies as they grow from larva to adult. On my early spring walk, the queen I saw was likely returning home from a collecting trip, and I wondered as I watched her descend into the leaf litter and then disappear, how many eggs had she already laid?
If I had returned a few weeks later, I might have seen one of her daughters emerge, ready to start the busy work of being an adult bee. Once this first group of worker bees are ready to leave the hive, the queen will never need to leave again. She will focus her time and energy on laying more eggs, until, by the end of summer, the colony can number up to 400, depending on the species. The workers will fly noisily in and out of the nest, finding nectar and pollen within a range of about 500 feet from their nest.
Bumble bees pollinate a vast array of flowers. They are known as “generalist” pollinators, because they collect pollen from all sorts of flowers, like tomato blossoms, dandelion blooms, daffodils, apple flowers, and more. All told, bumble bees are much more effective pollinators than their cousin, the honey bee. Some data suggests they pollinate four times as many blooms as honey bees, partly due to their longer “working hours” (they leave home early in the day, and have been seen working past sundown in some areas!), and are faster at collecting pollen and nectar. They are the high achievers of the bee world!
If you are interested in making your own outdoor space more bumble bee friendly, consider these simple ideas. First, don’t rake the leaf litter until mid-May, as many bumble bees hibernate there.
Once the warmer days arrive, it’s a good bet most of the queens have emerged from their winter rest, and are out buzzing around your flowers. Plant native flower species like blueberry or native black-eyed Susan in your space – these are the plants that the local bumble bees have evolved with here in New England for millions of years, and have a strong attraction to. A link to a thorough list of native, pollinator friendly species can be found on the Harris Center website.
Plant with the whole season in mind – bees will need flowers blooming from mid-April through October. So, when choosing plants, keep in mind their bloom time so the bees will have food from spring through summer and into the fall. Finally, come out to the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, and take a self-guided tour of our beautiful pollinator garden! You can also download the list of plants in our garden from our website, and plant your own. Happy bee watching!
Jenna Spear O’Mara is an entomologist, naturalist and camp director at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock.