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No Luggage - _TNY_4159

I am not a 100% on this bumblebee cimbing up a blue globe-thistle (Echinops bannaticus) in my mother-in-law's garden. The colours look like the common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum), but there aren't any pollen baskets on the hind legs. This means that it is either a cockoo bumblebee which parasitizes on "normal" bumblebees so they lack pollen baskets - in the case of B. pascuroum, this would be the field cuckoo bumblebee (B campestris), but I don't think it matches that one.

 

The only remaining answer I can think of is that this is a male B. pascuorum as males don't gather pollen for the nest and thus lack pollen baskets as well.

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Uploaded on April 7, 2024
Taken on July 25, 2021