Wednesday, November 29, 2023

The 80-Year Condensed Life of Clara Bee Huginton. A VT Bumblebee Story by Bernie Paquette.


Meet my neighbor, Clara. She is smart, sweet, and a good mom. You will like her. 

Oh, did I tell you she is a Bumblebee?




Preambleon the style of the story. 


   The text is information about Bumblebees (the genus Bombus), and a story about my time with Clara, an individual Bumblebee Queen and mother.


   In the story portion, I relay my observations of Clara over her active adult life, what I learned about her individually, and a little about her family. I gained insight into her perceptual world governed by her sense organs different than ours. 

   I was surprised at her awareness of her environment, her capacity for intelligence, learning, decision-making, memories, play, emotion, and understanding of actions and outcomes. 

   Come meet Clara BB Huginton - I am sure you will like her.

Much of the descriptions of the life of Bumblebees in this story are taken from various online articles and books. The name of the author and the article title follow the excerpt. If the source is a book, the title is listed in italics. 










Remember to leave room for the wild animals.
 Leaves provide important insulation and habitat for bumblebees,
 other bees, and other animals.
 
Andrena (Melandrena) pictured above is not a bumblebee.


This native shrub (pussy willow) provides some of the earliest flowers which means
that they provide plenty of pollen for our native bees!


Clara must learn how to access the reward from flowers. 
Each flower species has a different puzzle. 
Some individual bees do better than others.




Postscript from The_beeguy (Twitter handle): Basic bee fact #42
Bumblebee tongues are red/orange in color, long, stretchy, and hairy at the end.
 Perfect for lapping up nectar.
When in flight the tongue folds under the head and body inside a sheath.
The three smaller eyes are on the forehead in between the two larger eyes.

Many male BB species have tufts of yellow hair on their face.  

A complex tongue that varies among BB species and even within a species.

The Abdomen has segments called "Terga". 
The Tricolored Bumblebee shown above,
 the T6, T5 are black, T4 yellow, T3, T2 orange, T1 yellow.




"Experiments have shown that bumblebees are theoretically capable of flying at altitudes higher than Mt. Everest (29,000 feet) & they have been observed in the wild at altitudes as high as 16,000 feet above sea level." the_beeguy (Twitter handle).

Bumblebees have cute butts!




"Civilized yards are all alike. Every wild yard is wild in its own way."
 The Overstory by Richard Powers


Blueberry - a favorite for Clara - and mine too.


Leg up means you are getting too close - a sign of bee stress.



Beewolf

Robber Fly


Mite on a bumblebee.

Mite on a bumblebee



I have no hot coffee to offer. 
Instead, I blow a warm breath
 to help my bumblebee neighbor
 warm up on a cool wet morning.







Sweatbee excavating a Goldenrod stem from last year's growth.
Sarah BB Huginton
(Clara's daughter) 



 REFERENCES

About BB


 About Bumble Bees. The Xerces Society. 

American BB


The American Bumble Bee (Bombus pensylvanicus) - U.S. Forest Service.

BB Butts

2018

 Someone Noticed How Cute Bumblebee Butts Are, And Now We Can’t Get Enough.

BB natural history and conservation in VT

2020

Bumble Bee Natural History and Conservation in Vermont - Kent McFarland, VCE (Video recording)

Bernie’s Insect Blog

2023

VTBugeyed Blog

Book review

2014

 The Amazing World of Bumblebees. - UC News about Entomology and Nematology BB of NA Book Review.

Book review

2015

 The Bees in Your Backyard, Joseph Wilson & Olivia Carril, Princeton Univ. Press.

Book review (Research)

2022

 The Mind of a Bee, by Lars Chittka, Princeton Univ. Press

Book Review (Research)

2013

A Sting in the Tale by Dave Coulson

Brain

2022

 Bumble Bee Behavior: Surprising Capabilities of Small Brains. - Owlcation.

Brain /mind

2023

 Bees are sentient’: inside the stunning brains of nature’s hardest workers. The Guardian. 

Brood Care by males

1985

Brood care by male bumblebees

Buzz pollination

2016

 This Vibrating Bumblebee Unlocks a Flower's Hidden Treasure | Deep Look. Video

Buzz pollination

2016

 Watch: The Secret Buzz Only Bumblebees Know To Unlock Our Favorite Crops. - NPR.

Carry capacity

2021

 Bumblebees are the super heavyweights of the insect world… - Daily Mail. 

Cognition


 Animal Cognition: An Insect’s Sense of Time? 

Cognition

2012

 The mysterious cognitive abilities of bees: why models of visual processing need to consider experience and individual differences in animal performance. - Journal of Experimental Biology. 

Conservation


 Bumble Bee Conservation. - Xerces Society PDF

Conservation

2022

 Opinion: The Bumblebee’s Decline Shows How We Get Conservation Wrong. - UNDARK.

Conservation

2019

Honoring Robbin Thorp. A Legendary Figure In North American Bee Conservation. - The Xerces Society

Conservation

2023

Insect Pollinators: The Time is Now for Identifying Species of Greatest Conservation Need. McFarland, Spencer (VCE), et al.

Decline

2018

 Study Reveals Striking Decline of Vermont’s Bumble Bees. - University of Vermont. 

DLR Leg Lifting

2021

 The disturbance leg-lift response (DLR): an undescribed behavior in bumble bees. - NIH. 

Education in schools

2018

Don’t Know Much about Bumblebees?—A Study about Secondary School Students’ Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand

Education in schools

2022

Teaching and Learning about Bee Extinction through Project-Based Learning (PBL): Its Impact on the Classroom Climate (CL) among Eighth Grader Students

Education in schools

2003

Bumble Boosters: Doing Science as a Community of Learners - Univ of Nebraska

Energy economic laws fundamental to living

1979

Bumblebee Economics by Bernd Heinrich. Harvard University Press

Facts

2022

15 Buzzworthy Bumblebee Facts - Treehugger

Field Guide

2015

 Field Guide to the Bumble Bees of VT - Vt Center for Ecostudies

Field Guide

2014

Bumble Bees of North America, by Paul Williams, Robbin Thorp, Leif Richardson & Sheila Colla

Field Guide Poster


Bumble Bees of the Eastern United States - Pollinator Partnership

Finding flowers

2013

 Bumblebees use logic to find the best flowers. - PHYS ORG

Foraging

2018

Strong Interspecific Differences in Foraging Activity Observed Between Honey Bees and Bumble Bees Using Miniaturized Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Franklin BB

2021

 Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Franklin's Bumble Bee. - National Archives.

Fun Facts

2016

 11 Fun Facts You May Not Know About Bumble Bees. - Brody Brothers. 

General


 Bumblebee. - Wikipedia.

General


Native Bees. The Jha Lab

Grooming


How Do Bees Clean Themselves, Each Other, And The Nest or Hive?

Heat Stress

2023

 Feeling the heat: Bumblebee workers show no acclimation capacity of upper thermal tolerance to simulated heatwaves. - Journal of Thermal Biology. 

Hibernation

2022

 Where do bumble bees go in winter? - Honey Bee Suite

Hibernation


1969

 A Study of the Hibernation of Bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Bombidae) in Southern England. - JSTOR

Intelligence

2023

 Insect intelligence. Princeton Univ. Press. 

Learning

2023


Bumblebees learn new 'trends' in their behavior by watching and learning - Science Direct

Learning

2023

 Bumblebees learn new 'trends' in their behavior by watching and learning - Science News

Learning


2023

 Can insects have culture? Puzzle-solving bumblebees show it's possible. - NPR

Life History

2021

 An organizing feature of bumble bee life history: worker emergence promotes queen reproduction and survival in young nests. - Oxford Academic. 

Lifecycle

2021

 The Bumblebee Lifecycle - The Bumblebee Conservation Trust. (This is a UK-based and focused charity so the information we provide applies  to the UK.)

Lifecycle

2019

 The Bumblebee Professor II. The life cycle of the bumblebee. - Dave Goulson. Video

Lifecycle


Guidance - Bumble bees - natural mortality

Lifecycle


Look Inside a Bumblebee Nest - Bumblebee Conservation Trust (UK-based and focused charity so the information we provide applies to the UK.)

Lifecycle

2021

The Bumble Bee Life Cycle - Buzz About Bees

Lifecycle

2021

The Wonderful World Of Bees - Buzz About Bees

Mating

2013

 Bumble bees mating. Video

Microbiomes

2023

 The secret life of bumblebees - UCI News

Mortality


 Finding dead bumble bees. NatureScot. 

Nesting / overwintering. Photo of BB on the nest


 Bumble Bees: Nesting and Overwintering. - Xerces Society.

Personalities

2016

 Flight of the Bumblebee: survey finds individual personalities. The Guardian. 

Pesticide

2021

 It's not the Glyphosate, it is the inert ingredients. - Bee Culture.

Pesticides

2022

Quantifying exposure of bumblebee (Bombus spp.) queens to pesticide residues when hibernating in agricultural soils

Petition


 Save the American Bumblebee (petition). CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Petition

2018

WOMAN BECOMES FIRST KNOWN PERSON TO KEEP BUMBLEBEE AS A PET - APIS CERA

Physiology

2023

Using physiology to better support wild bee conservation - Conservation Physiology

Plants for BB

2020

 Bumblebees!: The Early Spring Garden. - A Wild Garden. 

Plants for BB

2022

 Heather Holm, Bumble Bee Banquet: Selecting Native Plants for Bumble Bees. Recording, Heather Holm Presentation. 

Plants for BB



 SOFT LANDINGS. - Heather Holm

Play

2022(?)

 Bumblebees enjoy playing with balls, according to study – BBC News. - Video

Play

2022

 Do bumble bees play? - Science Direct.

Play

2022

 First-ever study shows bumble bees ‘play’. Video

Play

2022

 This YouTube Video Shows Bumble Bees Playing With Toys. - Medium. 

Poem

1863

Hello Poetry, “Nature is what we see” (Poem) by Emily Dickinson 

Recognize human faces

2023

 The Conversation: Bees can learn, remember, even recognize human faces. - News Register. 

Red List


IUCN Red list of threatened species

Research of boxes used in Commercial use of BBs


Bumblebee research sparks rapid industry change

Robin Thorpe / Franklin BB

2016

The old man and the bee - CNN

Self Aware

2020

 Bumblebees perceive the spatial layout of their environment about their body size and form to minimize inflight collisions. - PNAS.

Sensory

2022

 An Immense World by Ed Yong,  Random House NY

Sharing observations


iNaturalist

Specialists


 Pollen Specialist Native Bees - Heather Holm.

Stress

2022

 Bumblebees have been increasingly stressed over the past century. - earth.com.

sunflowers

2023

 UMass Amherst research finds surprising science behind Bumblebee superfood - UMass Amherst

Survival rates

2023

 First field-based estimates of bumblebee diapause survival rates showcase high survivorship in the wild. PMC. 

Sustainability

2020

Why bees are critical for achieving sustainable development. National Library of Medicine. 

Taxonomic & FG

2014

 Bumble Bees of North America by Paul Williams, Robbin Thorp, Leif Richardson & Sheila Colla, Princeton Univ. Press. 

Temperature sensitivity

2022

It can be too warm or too cold for bumblebees to fly - Moment of Science

Vision

2014

Can bees see at a glance?

Watching BBs

2021

The Basics of Bumble Bee Watching. - Bell Museum


Hoverfly and Bumblebee

No comments:

Post a Comment