Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The First Bumble Bee



I saw the first bee of the year today, it was buzzing around the Daphne looking for some nectar and i was able to get a few close up pictures of it before it left.

I believe it to be a "Bombus Lucorum " its a very common bee and makes its nest underground, and is one of the first bees to be seen in spring.

This bee is from the family "Apidae" and is from the order Hymenoptera and there average body length is 3-27mm (1/8-1 1/4in). Bees are world wide except for Antarctica.

Apids are major crop pollinators. The value of crops pollinated by bees alone far exceeds the value of honey, wax and any other products they provide!

6 comments:

Sharon said...

Amazing pictures!!!!! I don't know what else to say but, Wow!

Ruth said...

Max, your photography is splendid, and your blog is beautiful. Is this a bumblebee? It looks like it, but I don't know enough about this species. We have honey bees that live in a tree; they were out very early too, maybe 3 weeks ago. I'm glad your mom told us about this today. That daphne shrub is a pretty lady.

Your nature photographs really speak to me. Keep up the great work.

Max Ackerson said...

Oh thanks i didn't think they would turn out so well. And yep this is just one of our ordinary bees, we have a lot of these bumble be drones i don't think there they have the best eyesight because they seem to always fly into you. We also have the honey bees that make there nests in trees here too!

Ruth said...

Oh, so they're blind bees? Maybe they're just waking up? Kind of like the flies that get so lethargic in the winter indoors.

Gwen Buchanan said...

max I love these photos of the Bee.. you did a great job!

Anonymous said...

Amazing images! I love bumblebees!