Soft Flower, Soft Bumblebee, Pt. 3 - _TNY_6734
This early in the season (ie mid-April), there isn't very much blossoming in Stockholm, Sweden.
If you are an insect feeding on pollen and nectar, there isn't very much to choose from, but the sallow (Salix caprea), aka goat willow, is alway early to get going. On an early visity to Åva-Stensjödal, I know of a place where they grow in just the right sizer to be able to shoot the bugs at a comfortable height. This was probably stilla little too early, so the place wasn't buzzing like crazy, but I made a couple of new friends.
This Bombus quadricolor cuckoo-bumblebee queen was unusually confident and kept eating even while I held the twig between my fingers and rotated it to get an angle that worked.
Cuckoo bumblebees behave a lot like the bird they're named after. Well, a little more brutal actually. The cuckoo queen sneaks into a nest belonging to it's target species - for this one it is B. pratorum - and somehow manage to imitate the smell of the pratorum queen. She preoceeds to hill the other queen and then take over both the nest and the workers to bring up her own offspring.
If you look closely around the neck area of this one, you can see a bunch of orange mites. These are phoretic mites and don't parasitize directly on the bumblebee except using it as a taxi service.
Part 1 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52020090669/
Part 2 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52757641665/
Another shot of the same bumblebee: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52327298640/
Soft Flower, Soft Bumblebee, Pt. 3 - _TNY_6734
This early in the season (ie mid-April), there isn't very much blossoming in Stockholm, Sweden.
If you are an insect feeding on pollen and nectar, there isn't very much to choose from, but the sallow (Salix caprea), aka goat willow, is alway early to get going. On an early visity to Åva-Stensjödal, I know of a place where they grow in just the right sizer to be able to shoot the bugs at a comfortable height. This was probably stilla little too early, so the place wasn't buzzing like crazy, but I made a couple of new friends.
This Bombus quadricolor cuckoo-bumblebee queen was unusually confident and kept eating even while I held the twig between my fingers and rotated it to get an angle that worked.
Cuckoo bumblebees behave a lot like the bird they're named after. Well, a little more brutal actually. The cuckoo queen sneaks into a nest belonging to it's target species - for this one it is B. pratorum - and somehow manage to imitate the smell of the pratorum queen. She preoceeds to hill the other queen and then take over both the nest and the workers to bring up her own offspring.
If you look closely around the neck area of this one, you can see a bunch of orange mites. These are phoretic mites and don't parasitize directly on the bumblebee except using it as a taxi service.
Part 1 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52020090669/
Part 2 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52757641665/
Another shot of the same bumblebee: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52327298640/