There are more than 250 species of bumblebees in the world. They are a welcome sight to gardeners because they pollinate plants and flowers while they forage for food. They are also used intentionally with some greenhouse crops. The bees don’t even have to land on the flowers. Their buzzing alone loosens pollen and sends it drifting through the greenhouse.
In the wild, bumblebees live in colonies of 50 bees or fewer. They are unique among other bees with their yellow and black stripes, but even more so by having soft, short hairs that make them look fuzzy. However, some species of bumblebees can have orange or red markings, or be entirely black.
In most cases, bumblebees go out of their way to avoid contact with other animals and humans. But when their nest is threatened they will defend. Because they have a smooth stinger, they are able to sting several times and live to see another day of pollinating.
Photographer Piper Haynes snapped this moment with a Samsung compact digital camera on a hot, sunny day in July. “The bumblebees were zipping around my grandma’s garden, so I ran out to capture the moment. This bumblebee was well at work when it landed in a hollyhock blossom,” she says.
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Interesting Facts: Bumblebees don’t have ears. They can feel vibrations but we don’t know if they can sense sounds in the air. You may have heard that the laws of aerodynamics show bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly due to their small wing to body size ratio, but that’s an urban legend.
