The Mystery of the Funny-colored Bees

If you have a pollinator garden, after a while you become familiar with the cast of characters that frequent it. That is why one late summer day of 2011 I was mystified to notice that some of the bumble bee guests to my garden were looking kind of strange, colorwise. A species of bee called Bombus vosnesenskii, or, the “yellow-faced bee”, which should have a cream-colored face like this: 

was showing up in my garden with an ochre-colored face, like this:

 

Not only that, but on some of the bees, even the pale yellow stripe on the abdomen was this same orangish color.

My first thought was that it had to be pollen staining. But looking around my garden, I could see no flowers that would stain a bee like that. I thought about any native plants that could cause it, and could come up with nothing. Besides, in looking at the bees, there didn’t seem to be any actual pollen on them, just color.

So I then hypothesized that perhaps the bees were color morphs, meaning insects with a color variation from the norm. Yet I could find nothing in the Bombus vosnesenskii literature that mentioned such a thing. Finally, I considered that these bees could be the result of interbreeding with some other bumble bee species, but again, nothing I read could confirm this possibility.

The summer ended, and with it, the pollinator season. The mystery remained unresolved, a fun riddle that I would occasionally ponder when looking my photos of the “funny-colored bees”.

In late August of the next summer, the same thing happened. Some of the B. vosensenskii coming to my lavender bush had the same weird hue. The mystery deepened in my mind, yet I seemed no closer to finding the truth.

Then in August of this year, some of my neighbors, knowing of my interest in bumble bees, invited me to their garden to see the bees that were “all over our dahlias”. You can probably guess where this is going.

The first thing I saw when I entered their garden was a Bombus vosnesenskii perched on a spent dahlia blossom looking gob-smacked.

The hairs on its face were absolutely loaded with orange pollen. I wondered if the pollen had somehow “jammed its frequencies”, making it unable to function. In that instant I knew I had the answer to my multi-year mystery.

In looking around, a saw several more pollen-stained bees, and the specific dahlia that was causing it. It wasn’t a particularly showy variety, but it did have a few attributes that made it attractive to bumble bees.

First, like all dahlias, it had a composite flower, which means that the centers of the big, daisy-like blooms are actually made up of many tiny flowerets, each of which has a nectar gland its base. Two, this hybrid hadn’t had the nectar bred out of it, or the petals made so numerous that the nectaries were blocked. Three, the pollen on this particular species was particularly thick and plentiful. Pollen is the protein-rich substance that bumble bees gather to feed their larval young.

All good reasons for Bombus to frequent these dahlias, but what these particular bees were after was nectar. And to get at it, they had to stick their tongues and faces deep into the flowers, which put them in contact with the pollen-laden stamens. The effect was similar to sticking one’s face in a bowl full of spaghetti to eat it. Orange pollen was everywhere, staining the bees' hairs.

One of the bees, I noticed, was a very large, beautiful, newly-minted B. vosnesenskii, the hair on her body as sleek and shiny as a black cat’s. She was a next-year’s queen, who would spend the winter in the ground until emerging in the spring to start the subsequent generation of bees.  She was stoking up on dahlia nectar to help her survive the cold, dark months beneath the soil.

No messy eater, she, though. As befits a queen, and with benefit of her long tongue, only the very front of her face, looking like a dainty little powder puff, bore a pale orange dusting of pollen. I was charmed.

I’m always on the lookout for great new pollinator plants, so when I asked my neighbors if I could have a dahlia tuber to plant in my garden, they kindly agreed. With any luck, by next August I will be getting a buzz from watching my own episode of the nature documentary called The Funny-Colored Bees.

 
Here's some additional video of the B. vosnesenskii queen on a dahlia:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-oBFif4jc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUG3jWO8v65u8iJuwiX2blSA











  

The Pollination Trap

Bumble bees are so cool. One facet of their lives I find most interesting is their interaction with flowers in their role as pollinators. A bee covered in pollen grains is a magical sight to me, but a couple of summers ago I discovered that the floral kingdom can be endlessly inventive in creating methods of insect pollination.

A perennial I really enjoy in my garden is the July-blooming Asclepias tuberosa. A member of the milkweed family, it is also known by the common name butterfly weed. Its thousands of tiny, bright orange, nectar-filled flowers are a trifecta for attracting pollinators – hummingbirds, butterflies and bumble bees all love it. So I was kind of surprised to discover that asclepias has a darker side.

One day a few years ago I was observing a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) perched on a sneezeweed flower. I noticed the bee was acting strange - stumbling around while frantically trying to groom itself.

When I leaned in for a closer look I saw that its claws were covered with teardrop-shaped flakes of what I assumed to be nectar and pollen. I'd never seen anything like it. I tried to figure out where this weird-looking, sticky pollen was coming from but couldn’t fit the puzzle pieces together So I decided to take some pictures and a couple of videos and send them on to Carol Anne Kearns, a bumble bee expert who wrote the book The Natural History of Bumblebees.

I asked her, "I'm wondering if you have ever seen this before? I couldn't find anything online about it. It kind of looks like the bumble bee is wearing clown shoes. I was trying to figure out which flowers in my pollinator garden were causing this. I think it must be the butterfly weed, because that's what all the vosnesenskii bumble bees are focused on right now. They will nectar from the sneezeweed as well, but they also like to use it as a place to groom, since it's right next to the Asclepias."

Ms. Kearns kindly wrote me back saying: "Butterfly weed produces pollinia - sticky packages made up of many pollen grains, rather than individual pollen grains. That seems to be what is stuck on this bee!
See http://www.backyardnature.net/fl_milkw.htm for a photo."

Pollinia, eh? I’d never heard of it. But now I wanted to find it in an asclepias flower. That turned out to be easier said than done. I went to my garden and harvested a few of the tiny flowers. I tore them apart but couldn’t find any pollinia. Where were they?

I decided to dissect a few more flowers, concentrating on the very base of the blossom. Finally, I found one

No wonder I had difficulty - they’re really tiny – no bigger than Franklin Roosevelt’s nose on a dime! They’re pretty cool looking though – like miniature wishbones.

According to the information that Ms. Kearns sent me, pollinium (plural pollinia) is a pollination strategy that only a few species of flowers utilize, asclepias and orchids among them. From what I’ve seen and read, it can be as sticky as velcro onto a bee’s legs and so resistant to release from the blossom that occasionally a bumble bee will pull its leg off in the struggle to free itself.

There is always something fascinating going on in the pollinator garden, and this year I will again be looking for bumble bees wearing clown shoes. But at least now I’ll understand what it is I’m seeing, and appreciate anew the complex and wondrous interaction between bees and flowers.

Other Resources:

Wiki on pollinium:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollinium

Beautiful photo of milkweed pollinium:

http://dkphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Milkweeds-Life-Cycle/G0000rgA8YA11KGg/I0000d1IVywb4vuk/C00006iIlXsmpZqE

Showing how a pollinium is removed from a milkweed flower:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/h5zQo7wTSyM-removing-pollinium-from-milkweed-flower.aspx

The effectiveness of different pollinators that come in contact with milkweed pollinia:

http://www.restoringthelandscape.com/2013/02/milkweed-pollination-sticky-situation.html

The Water Sprites

The Water Sprites

By Nancy Partlow

The first in a series called, “Shoot the Deschutes; Photographing the Fauna and Flora of the Deschutes River Valley and Beyond”

We are so blessed to have a wonderful park in our midst; a park that, thanks to the dedicated work of the Olympia Tumwater Foundation, is experiencing a rejuvenation. English ivy is being pulled and replaced with the native plants species that originally flourished there.  Needed infrastructure improvements are taking place.  I’m beginning to love Tumwater Falls Park again the way I did when I was a child.

But as much as I love the park for its beautiful scenery and nourishment of spirit, there is another who loves it more.  An enchanting and unique little creature, it is North America’s only aquatic songbird – the American Dipper (Cinclus mexicanus).

Also known by its older, more charismatic name of Water Ouzel, the dipper thrives in a beautiful and ever-moving world of cascades and cataracts. Observing it from riverside, this is clearly a being at one with the element in which it abides – cold, rushing water.

I’ve always been aware of dippers at the Falls, but it wasn’t until recently when I sought them out for my Shoot the Deschutes project, that I really got to see them up close.  What I discovered was captivating.

The dipper is a slate-gray bird whose cryptic coloration helps it blend in with the water and weathered basalt of the river.  It is a couple of inches smaller than a robin but larger than the wren it resembles with its short, often-cocked tail.  Compulsively flexing its legs in a bobbing motion reminiscent of deep knee bends, it perpetually genuflects to the river from which it gains its sustenance. My college biology professor once told me that “no one knows why the dipper dips”, and I believe this still holds true.

The dipper makes its living among the rocks and rills of river gorges, hunting for aquatic insects above and beneath the surface of fast moving streams, eating larvae from river bottoms and the undersides of midstream boulders. Fish eggs and small fry are also on its menu.  The toes of its feet are very long, to help it maintain a grip upon the streambed, while the wings are short and stubby to facilitate its ability to “fly” under water.

The water ouzel has a genuine song of “piping notes and trills”, which is loud enough to often be the only avian voice discernible above the roar of the river.

The dipper’s nest is about the size of a football, with a mossy outer shell and an interior cup nest composed of grasses, leaves and bark strips.  According to an article by Dianna Moore of Grays Harbor Audubon, “The female chooses a nest site in the bank along a stream, behind a waterfall or under a bridge."

My recent experiences with dippers at Tumwater Falls Park fortuitously coincided with the fledging of two juveniles from a nest somewhere along the gorge.  I never did discover the nest site, but it was the piercing calls of the babies begging food from their mother that helped me track the trio as they flew in short jaunts up and down the riparian corridor.

The first time I actually saw one of the birds, it was clinging to a near-vertical rock face at the base of the lower falls.  A youngster, its downy feathers dotted with tiny silvery sequins of spray, was watching and waiting for its mother.  The child had obviously been there for quite some time as three small, dead fish were laid out before it, as if on a moss-covered platter.

This bird soon joined its sibling on the Washington State Fisheries barge tethered a few feet away.  From that platform I got a great view of them eagerly propositioning their harried parent for something to eat, excitedly flapping their wings with gaping mouths whenever she drew near.

Though the next day was rainy, I came back to the park carrying a longer-lens camera and an umbrella.  I felt fortunate to witness and film the young dippers exploring their brand new world of the upper estuary.  I admired their mother's swimming skills, as she zigzaged at lightning speed beneath the rippled waters tracking and catching small salmon (very kindly just released by Fish and Wildlife into the estuary). She then rapidly knocked the stunned fingerlings upon the river cobble before stuffing them down the babies’ gullets.

On my third visit, I was standing on the wooden footbridge bridge directly over the lower waterfall when a group of students from the Raymond School District showed up.  I had been following the dipper family around the middle falls, then back down to the estuary.   But now, the ouzel chicks seemed perilously perched on a large fallen tree wedged directly above the roaring torrent.  I pointed out the birds to the students, who were enthralled but worried about the babies.  Yet the mites seemed entirely at ease and unafraid.  Mama soon came and fed them, and once again they all moved on.

A dipper’s habitat requirements include the clear, clean, well-oxygenated water that supports its favorite prey.  So, I wonder, how do dippers cope with the raging and silt-laden Deschutes during our periodic great storm events?

Dippers are uncommon residents of Thurston County and elsewhere in their range, which stretches from Alaska, throughout the U.S. and Canadian mountain west and into Central America. Other than Tumwater Falls Park, the only other place in Thurston County that I know they occur is within a picturesque gorge in the upper Deschutes watershed, where a water ouzel was once seen flitting along the rim of a large waterfall.

It seems somehow fitting to me that these marvelous little birds safeguard both ends of the Deschutes.  That these evanescent water sprites, slipping easily between the realms of fluid, air and earth, at once keep the river’s secrets, yet reveal its hidden beauty to any one with the eyes to truly see.

  

Addition Resources:

Grays Harbor Birds: http://ec2-50-18-173-185.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/sections/sports/local/grays-harbor-birds-american-dipper.html

Cornell: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Dipper/id

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dipper 

Videos:

A short video of adult feeding a juvenile at Tumwater Falls Park:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Oy2tQjBW_AE

Some great videos of American dippers pulled off of YouTube:

American dipper building nest at Whatcom Falls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtpVi3fWnfU

Dipper adults feeding babies in nest on Dosewallips River, Olympic Pennisula: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8bkjt6gQy0

Dipper male singing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgAYiD37KiM

American dipper swimming under water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV6IDY1TSC0

Dipper diving into roaring river: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkGvKEeqVM

Mima Mounds

Mima Mounds Prairie
March 2012

The Mima prairie sprawls out in front of me,
 snagged in the feet of the Black Hills.
Late winter winds shear off the iced hills,
swirling restlessly around the mounds.
In my mouth the metal taste of snow.

On the prairie, last year’s bunch grass:
stiff hollow stalks rattle together like sabers.
Cold creeps up my back

Greening mats of kinnick kinnick carpet the mounds
Tiny flower bells emerge from clots of lichens
Faint pink flash of bloom tantalizes my eyes.

Soon enough, the sun will return:
the hot breath of summer and the smell of vernal grass
sweet-baked in the heat.
Now, the west wind sings a chilly dirge to the Mima Mounds.
Deep in the soil, the shooting stars sleep.

Poet's Shooting Star wildflower

Janet Partlow

Resources:

poem by Janet

Mima prairie photo by Nancy Partlow

River Otters at Sunset

      It was November 15th when we saw the first sunshine we had seen for many days.  Late October had brought in torrential wet storms from the Pineapple Express.   As a nature watcher, I’d been reduced to watching Anna’s hummingbirds beat their way to the feeders in strong winds.  It was entertaining, up to a point.  But when the sun finally came out, I was ready for something different.



    So when Glen called that morning after driving to work, and reported that he’d seen “wall to wall” ducks on the Deschutes estuary, I made a plan to go down to the water with my sister Nancy to see for myself.

     So much for my plans:  by the time I got there in late afternoon, the ducks had mostly flown the coop.   But rather than getting disappointed about plans gone awry, nature has taught me to look around and see what else is on offer.  And what showed up that day was river otters.

     It took me awhile to notice them.  By the time I got to the estuary it was late afternoon and the early winter sunset was beginning to paint the sky pink.  I scanned the water with the spotting scope, looking at the dark clots of winter ducks.   But when I turned to train the scope over near the dam itself, my scanning stopped with a sudden, surprised lurch as my eye was caught by otters, cavorting on the bank just beyond the concrete dam wall.

     These were the river otters that were known to be around Capitol Lake.  I remember a few years ago a sign was posted near 5th avenue about keeping an eye out for otters crossing the road;  the story was that an adult female and her young were living very near the dam and crossing the road regularly.  While the adult was no doubt skilled at avoiding cars, her pups were not.  Hence the sign.



     I’m guessing today’s otters were adolescents, born in the same brood early this year and getting near independence (Adult otters are solitary and territorial).  As I watched they rolled up and down the bank, nipping each other and chasing each other around.  The last of the sun was shining on the muddy bank and they seemed to be enjoying it as much as I did.  The tide had also reached its zenith and salt water came pouring over the dam into the estuary, creating a froth of bubbly fast moving current.  The young otters frisked and frolicked through this, as well.



     Then they caught sight of my sister, who had snuck up near the dam to get pictures.  It was comical, the way they all froze and stopped, staring at her and sniffing for possible danger.  I love the look in their eyes.



     When she ducked from sight, the otters returned to play, hanging out on the bank and slipping in and out of the water.  As the sun started to fade from the sky,  the play stopped and they grouped up, swimming purposefully, heading down south.  I had trouble tracking them while they were underwater, but realized I could follow them by the ducks;  it is not unknown for meat-eating otters to snatch a duck, and the ducks know this. As the otters got close, among the quiet rafts of ducks, there was a sudden otter-induced cackling and hooting and rapid skittering flight to a safer location.



     Finally the otters had progressed well across the water and I lost track of them.  The sun by now had slipped behind the hills to the west;  my hands were cold on the scope and I  began to shiver.  For me, it was a time to pack up  and head home to a warm house.  For the otters, it was the beginning of their “day” (they are more active from dusk to dawn);   off to check out a favorite feeding hole, to find crayfish and small fish and crabs and unwary ducks to maintain that high metabolic rate that keeps them warm on days like this.

     As I drove home, in the waning light of dusk, my head was still full of young otters, swimming and swirling,  moving as fluidly as the element of water they make their own.  I thought of them roving the estuary that cold winter night, hunting in the dark by smell and by whiskers, yet another piece of the rich life of the Deschutes estuary that is my own lifeblood, and theirs.



Janet Partlow
Resources:
•  Otter photos by Nancy Partlow
•  YouTube link to a battle between a heron and an otter - a bit grisly: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSc_JE0q46I&feature=related


    
    

Winter Sanctuary for Yellow Jackets

     Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have had a prolonged Indian summer period which ended abruptly two weeks ago when the Pineapple Express starting funneling in huge tropical rainstorms from Hawaii.  Out in the world of nature, everything went from crackling dry, ready for a major forest fire to sodden:  the bright leaves ripped out of the trees and now stuck to the walkways, the mushrooms logs awaiting that rain now starting to sprout oyster and shitakes, the people (like me) slogging out to the car with wet socks and pant hems.  It has been a very abrupt finish to a halcyon summer that seemed as if it would never end...

     It’s been a precipitous turnaround for the insects, as well.  Lately I’ve been watching several fat Yellow Jacket queen wasps, hovering at the walls of our house, seeking out a place to find sanctuary from the coming winter.  Days are getting shorter, colder and wetter and soon they must find a safe place, or die.

     Here at our house, these queens often crawl in our mason bee tube colonies, tucking down into the dry spaces between the wooden tubes.  Once safely stowed away, they go dormant, reducing their metabolism and feeding off their stored fat.  Here is a picture from one of our mason bee houses; you can see two different queens deeply asleep and well protected between the tubes.

     They often find piles of woodland duff or conifer needles to overwinter in.  One memory from childhood is when I climbed up in our juniper trees and found a fat, cold, sleeping queen buried in a pile of needles in the crotch of the tree.  I was both terrified and fascinated to see how quiet she was, though as I prodded her she began to waken and within a few minutes was more than capable of defending herself.  I fled that tree forthwith. 

     Yellow jackets often overwinter in cold outbuildings.  I remember going into an unused cabin in mid-February:  we turned on the heat and the lights and within half an hour we had awoken a dozy queen; she was at the ceiling light, grumbling away with that low, steady, ominous buuuzzzzz that can still freak me out. 

     Yellow jacket is the common name for predatory wasps of the Vespula and Dolichovespula genera.  Most of us know these wasps as the uninvited guests at the summer picnic.  Most humans give little respect to these wasps, but in fact the Yellow Jackets play an important part in the natural world:  they are key predators of insects such as caterpillars, grubs, crickets and any other bugs too slow to get away.   Were it not for predators such as these, keeping populations in check , our world would soon be over run by insects. 

     Yellow jackets have select food preferences and they are voracious about these preferences.  The adults like sweet-tasting liquids, such as nectar in flowers.  They also like rotting fruit, and can be found swarming over fall fruit on the ground, especially juicy ones.  They like tree sap, which explains why our drippy Norway Spruce always has lots of yellow jackets around it in the summer.  All of these natural sweet items are mimicked in our sodas and fruit drinks, which is one big reason why Yellow Jackets visit the picnic table.
     The other reason is meat.  The young larvae growing in the hive require animal protein to grow.  This is why the adults hunt for burgers.  But they will also forage for dead insect carcasses, the yellow jacket version of road kill.

     The adults also happily settle for any other available protein.  Glen had a friend who brought home some salmon bone carcasses, which she planned to use in an art project.  She hung the carcasses out in the carport to dry; Glen watched over several weeks as the yellow jackets came and went, efficiently stripping off the fish to take home to the nest to feed their young.  He watched in fascination as some worker wasps carved off huge hunks of salmon, some of which were so large the wasp could barely fly.  Over time the yellow jackets completely cleaned the bones.  Their growing larvae were well-fed and Glen’s artist friend got some spanking clean bones out of the process.
    
     Yellow jackets have their predators as well.  A related black and white wasp commonly called a Bald-faced Hornet specializes in catching and eating bees and wasps.  I have seen this first hand.  
    One late summer day I was sitting outside near our plum tree.  It had produced masses of fruit that year , so a lot of it was on the ground, slowly fermenting in the sun.  There were yellow jackets all over these plums, sucking up a quick energy snack before foraging for the hive.  
     I was watching a yellow jacket crawling over the surface of a plum, looking for the best place to dig in, when a Bald-faced hornet appeared.  I expected to see a skirmish over the plum and was curious about who would win.  I was wrong: the Bald-faced hornet was hunting meat.  There was an epic battle where the two wasps duked it out, loud buzzing , frantic manueverings and stinging like crazy.  The Bald-faced hornet won.  I watched the yellow jacket die, and then the Bald-faced hornet efficiently began to carve it up and carry away pieces back to her hive.  It took a couple of trips.   That predatory Yellow Jacket was the building block for more Bald-faced hornet workers.  And so the cycle continues...

     Today the Pineapple Express has finally changed tracks.  The clouds are breaking open and sun is pouring through my window.  The temperature gauge reads 56 degrees, which is warm enough for wasps.  I expect to see more queens hovering at our wooden siding, looking for a safe place to make it through the cold days approaching.  Soon they will be completely gone for the season. 

     Come next March, when the temperatures rise once more into the low 50’s and the sun makes a serious appearance, these queens will shake off their sleep and find the nearest nectar to recharge their energy.  Here is a photo I took in late March, at a crocus flower bed in our nearby park.  This was a queen who had found a good winter sanctuary and made it through.  Here are the wasp queens, coming out of dormancy and back into the active hive life for the new year ahead. 


Janet Partlow
Resources:  hive photo by wise acres gardens.  All other photos by BBB naturalists.
    

The Bumble Bees of Thurston County

Bombus mixtus and Bombus melanopygus workers on allium

Bumble bees are the most readily recognizable of all native pollinating insects. They're like pandas; terrific ambassadors to the natural world. And even though they have the ability to sting, they are surprisingly tolerant of humans when away from their nests. Yet the average person knows very little about them, and even bumble bee experts (few and far between) have only recently begun to get a handle on the complexities of their taxonomy, ranges and habitat.

This is true on the local level as well. We know for sure there are at least eight species of bumble bees indigenous to Thurston County and probably more. In an effort to educate the public about these amazing insects, we would like to share with you our introductory identification guide to the Bumble Bees of Thurston County.

                                     

Probable male Bombus flavifrons

Photographing and identifying bumble bees in the field can be surprisingly challenging. Some bumble bee species look very similar, if not identical to each other. Bumble bees of different species occasionally interbreed. Bumble bees move very quickly. They typically forage on blossoms for only the briefest moment in time before moving on to the next flower. The flowers they forage on are often close to the ground. The female and male bumble bees of some species look quite different. Finally, bumble bees of the same species and sex can be of dramatically different sizes!
  

Bombus mixtus queen on rhody

The queens are the largest bumble bees of each species to be seen all year. The first generation of worker bees that the queen raises herself can be really tiny - no larger than a pea. As the season advances and the number of workers in the nest grows and more food resources become available, subsequent generations get larger. In the spring, this can lead to the the rather puzzling sight of seeing two same-species bumble bees on the same plant, one about the size of a large marble (a queen), and one pea-sized (first generation).

We have endeavored to take the best bumble bee photos possible for this guide, but for all the reasons above, it's an ongoing process. As more and better shots become availble, we'll post them.  For identification purposes, the three main bumble bee body parts are: The head; the middle section called the thorax (where the wings attach); and the largest hind segment which is the abdomen.  Worker bees are always female and resemble the queen.

Herewith,
The Bumble Bees of Thurston County:

Bombus vosnesenski, or Yellow-faced Bumblebee. Very common from early February until mid-November, B. vosnesenskii is one of our largest queens. A big black body, with yellow face, a yellow bar across the upper thorax and a thin yellow stripe near the end of the abdomen. From February to late June, you can see a distinctive behavior: these large queens slowly patrol the grass and gardens in a loud, droning, low altitude flight looking for abandoned mouse holes in which to make their nests.                                                

                         

Bombus vosnesenskii queen on rhody

Bombus californicus or Black-faced Bumblebee. A late-emerging queen, this species is first seen in late June and vanishes by October. They are uncommon here. The queen is very large, even slightly bigger than the Yellow-faced bumble bee queen. B. californicus has a large, shiny black prow of a face, with a thick pale yellow stripe across the thorax and a thin yellow stripe near the end of the abdomen. Preferred nectar plants we have observed this bee on are germander, lamb’s ears and caryopteris, although the one in the photo happens to be on monarda (bee balm), another favorite.

                           

  Bombus californicus on Monarda, ("Bee Balm")

Bombus melanopygus or Black-rumped Bumble bee. We think this species should be called the "Red-belted Bumble bee" for the bright red band around its middle. B. melanopygus is our earliest emerging queen; the earliest date we have seen her is January 21st (during an unusual warm spell one winter). These bees love rhododendrons and in May can be seen using all kinds of rhodies, faces buried deep in the flowers' nectaries and frenetically gathering pollen. By early June, the rhododendrons are done, and so, too, are the melanopygus bumble bees; it is rare to see one past June.

Bombus melanopygus worker on rhody

Bombus melanopygus is distinctive: a yellow head, a mostly black thorax, with some yellow further back, then a wide, brick-red cumberbund across the upper abdomen, followed by black. The aposomatic (warning) coloration of this bee befits its feisty nature. If you get too close to a B. melanopygus nest, watch out!

In early spring the queen of this species loves crocuses, heather and pussywillows. On a 50+ degree day in February, with full sun, from 2- 4 pm, she can usually be found seeking nectar and pollen at these flowers. 

                            

Bombus melanopygus queen on crocus

Bombus occidentalis is officially known as the Western Bumble Bee, though we think of it as the "white butt" bee. It's a large bee that used to be common in Thurston County, but in the last 10 years it has disappeared from much of its previous habitat and is considered to be in trouble. We have been observing local bumble bees since 2008, and have never seen one.                    

                                               

Bombus occidentalis      (Xerces Society photo)

For this reason the Xerces Society is tracking any sightings. Look for a large black bee with a black face, a yellow stripe across the thorax and upper abdomen, followed by a thick white patch that covers the tail. The white patch is distinctive and unmistakable.

If you see this bee, try to take a picture. Call us at 352-9009 and contact the Xerces Society at http://www.xerces.org/western-bumble-bee/                      

Bombus mixtus is a smallish bee, even the queen is pretty small . The first queens emerge in late March and the workers can be seen throughout the summer.

On first glance B. mixtus is mostly a small, fuzzy yellow bee. But on closer inspection, on the abdomen you will notice a thick yellow stripe, followed by a mostly black thick stripe, and finally, at the business end (stinger-tail), pale-orange pile.

                                                                                                                 

Bombus mixtus male on lavender

These bees have short tongues, which mean you are less likely to find them nectaring at deep flowers. They are famous for "nectar-robbing", which means they chew holes in flowers with hard to reach nectar, sticking their tongues in to feed and bypassing the pollen. The flower thus gets cheated of pollination services.

                  

Bombus mixtus female nectar-robbing columbine blossom

Bombus nevadensis nevadensis is the Nevada Bumblebee. We’ve only see it once: a spectacular HUGE queen had just emerged in late July and we found her nectaring on lavender. We let her go (after taking a few photos) and we’ve not seen her or her progeny since. In four years of serious BB watching, this is our only sighting, so at least in Thurston County it is a very rare bee. 

                                                     

Bombus nevadensis queen on lavender

These are our biggest bumblebees. A glossy black face, a thorax covered very densely with mustard-yellow pile except for a central black spot, and an abdomen that is also covered with thick yellow pile, except for black pile at the business end.

                                        

Bombus nevadensis queen

                                                       

Bombus sitkensis or Sitka bumblebee. We are still learning about this bee. The queen probably emerges in mid April. She is medium sized; her face is black with a few yellow tufts, her thorax has a circlet of pale yellow hair and a very large black central spot. One thing we’ve noticed is that she has quite a bit of yellow hair at the base of her wings, which sort of looks like armpit hair.

The first part of her abdomen has a lemony yellow pile, followed by mostly black. The very end of her abdomen has some scattered, distinctly dark red rusty hairs. This is a key field mark,and is also hard to see without getting within striking distance of her stinger.

                

Bombus sitkensis worker

                         

Bombus sitkensis worker

Bombus flavifrons - This bee looks very much like Bombus sitkensis, and quite frankly, we're still trying to sort out the differences.  The one diagnostic is the lack of rusty-colored hairs on the very end of the abdomen.

Probable Bombus flavifrons

    

Probable Bombus flavifrons

                                                              

Other bumble bees of Thurston County:

Bombus rufocinctus - We haven't seen this bee yet, but we know its here. When we have photos we'll post them.

Bombus bifarius - Another bee we know is here, but haven't seen yet.

For those interested in learning more about our native bumble bees, two excellent identification guides have recently been become available:

Bumblebees of Washington

and

Bumble Bees of the Western United States

Several of the bees here we have written on in more depth in earlier posts.  They can be found here:
.http://olypollinators.blogspot.com/search/label/bumblebees
 
We hope you enjoy and use this guide.  Please feel free to contact us with feedback and questions about bumble bees. We'd like to continue to expand our knowledge of these fascinating and important pollinators. 

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Text written by Janet and Nancy Partlow
Except for Bombus occidentalis, all photos taken by Nancy Partlow