Hostile Takeover Bumblebee - _TNY_6794
A four-coloured cuckoo bumblebee (Bombus quadricolor) eating nectar on a purple flower.
If you look closely at the hind legs, you'll notice that it lacks the pollen baskets which "regular" bumblebees have. The answer is that "cuckoo" part of the name. Just like the cuckoo bird, these parasitise on other species (these on Bombus lucorum), but they take it a step further than just leaving your offspring to be raised by others. Here, she enters the nest of the other species and either chase the other queen away or outright kill her and destroy her eggs. The workers of the colony are convinced she is "their" queen using pheromones and will raise her larvae to adult bumblebees.
Because of their more violent lifestyle, cuckoo bumblebees generally have larger mandibles and stinger/veom sac and there are about 30 known species in the world and eight of them can be found in Sweden.
Hostile Takeover Bumblebee - _TNY_6794
A four-coloured cuckoo bumblebee (Bombus quadricolor) eating nectar on a purple flower.
If you look closely at the hind legs, you'll notice that it lacks the pollen baskets which "regular" bumblebees have. The answer is that "cuckoo" part of the name. Just like the cuckoo bird, these parasitise on other species (these on Bombus lucorum), but they take it a step further than just leaving your offspring to be raised by others. Here, she enters the nest of the other species and either chase the other queen away or outright kill her and destroy her eggs. The workers of the colony are convinced she is "their" queen using pheromones and will raise her larvae to adult bumblebees.
Because of their more violent lifestyle, cuckoo bumblebees generally have larger mandibles and stinger/veom sac and there are about 30 known species in the world and eight of them can be found in Sweden.