Not sure who needs to hear this... but... honey bees throughout the world are an invasive species. They are only native to Europe. Stop trying to save invasive species!
@Dhmspector@ai6yr "Meanwhile, the American bumblebee, once the most commonly observed bumblebee in the U.S., has suffered an 89% drop in abundance and vanished from at least eight states over the past two decades, according to a 2021 petitionfiled by the Center for Biological Diversity and a group of Albany Law School students arguing that the American bumblebee should be listed as an endangered species." Bumblebees still in Wisconsin for now. #bumblebee#bumblebees
#NoMowMay update. The muscari now seem slightly past their prime. Bee nettles (Lamium album) now seem to be the favorite for the #bumblebees #Bloomscrolling
While bumble bees live socially in hives usually located underground (with 50 - 500 individuals), foragers or males can happen to sleep in flowers, especially when tired after too much work
"Chimpanzees have large brains and rich cultural lives, but the discovery among #bumblebees is all the more remarkable because it focuses not on humanity's primate cousins, but on… an animal with a brain that is barely 0.0005 percent of the size of an ape.
Recent experiments in the lab show these #bees can learn from each other, use tools, count to zero, and perform basic mathematical equations."
Wonderful video. Researchers set up a confusing puzzle box with a sweet reward & revealed that bumblebees can learn skills from others that they could not acquire alone, a behaviour thought to be unique to people. After showing that no lone bee could work out how to solve the puzzle, the scientists painstakingly trained nine bees how to do it. The trained bees became demonstrators for other bees, who watched, learnt & won their reward. #Bumblebees#Culture#Bees#Nature
The garden is full of drunk bumblebees at the moment thanks to the huge amount of pollen from the artichoke flowers. This one made it as far as an eryngium flower, just a few metres away, before giving up on staying upright...
I checked on it later and it was starting to move around a bit, although quite groggily
Ever heard, “According to physics, bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly”?
This assumes bumblebees fly without moving their wings, but they rotate their wings in a figure-of-eight and flap them up to 200 times per second – fast enough to sweep fallen petals across the ground.