18
Wednesday, August 30, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Pity the poor
bumble bee
The present population of
our Western bumblebees is in
big trouble.
I’ve been a beekeeper
most of my adult life, and I
love having domestic bees
in my immediate vicinity. Of
course, I also love the honey
they produce, but, perhaps
more than that, I love their
lifestyle. But I’ve give given
up the love of bee-keeping
to give bumblebees the help
they need.
The only bumblebee that
survives the winter is one
queen; there are no workers
to help keep her warm, she’s
all alone, hiding under an old
log, or buried in the soil of
a hillside or bank hibernat-
ing to keep from freezing,
waiting for the warm rays of
spring when she’ll emerge
and hopefully, lay a few eggs
to start a new colony.
She mated with the male
drone in late summer of the
previous year, and she hasn’t
eaten anything since the pre-
vious summer. This is why
it’s vitally important that she
finds early flowers in order
to feed.
Newly emerged queens
eat both nectar and pollen,
and it’s pollen that helps her
ovaries develop — but she
cannot fly unless her flight
muscles are at about 86
degrees Fahrenheit, so she
has to brave the cold weather
to fly and feed, or else she’ll
sink into torpor and never
wake up. She continues feed-
ing and sheltering at night
near the food plants, sleep-
ing in old rodent burrows, or
under logs for a few weeks
until her body signals her
that it is time to find a nest
site.
This is the reason she
must have pollinating flow-
ers blooming close by, like
the lowly and unloved dan-
delion. People who use her-
bicides to kill dandelions in
their lawns are just one rea-
son our bumblebees are in
big trouble. Not only is the
bumblebee’s food removed,
but the residual chemicals
are contaminating their (and
our) world. It is unfortunate
that tidy gardeners often
destroy what the bumblebee
queen would regard as highly
desirable food and residence.
Once her ovaries and
eggs start to form, the queen
begins nest-searching in ear-
nest. Deserted small rodent
burrows are favorite nest
sites, along with clumps of
dead grasses, empty wood-
pecker holes, cracks in old,
rotten logs and even outside
furniture will be become
nests sites.
I once had a lovely young
lady call me with alarming
news, “I have a nest of bum-
blebees in my love seat on
the porch!” she proclaimed.
I removed the bees and
their nest and built them a
new home out of a concrete
block, stuffed with grasses,
and placed it not too far away
under a small piece of ply-
wood in a hedge.
Once a queen has found
a suitable site, she builds a
wax honey pot and fills it
with regurgitated nectar that
becomes honey. Next, she
builds up a store of pollen,
some of which she eats, and
the balance she makes into
“bee bread.” She uses saliva
mixed with pollen, and it’s
believed the saliva provides
protection against spoiling by
fungi and bacteria. Can you
imagine what happens when/
if she collects pollen from a
dandelion bloom that’s been
sprayed with chemicals?
If you’re fortunate enough
in spring to observe a bum-
blebee with her pollen bas-
kets full, you know she’s
found a nest site and is pre-
paring to lay eggs. The store
of pollen, nectar and bee-
bread also enables the queen
to survive for a day or two of
bad weather without forag-
ing, which in our part of the
country is vital.
What takes place next is
something I have not — and
probably will never — wit-
ness, but, according to bee
researchers, the pollen stim-
ulates the ovaries to produce
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Our poor old vanishing Western bumblebee, a victim of everything from
climate change to chemicals to greed.
eggs, which the queen lays in
batches of four to 16 on the
ball of pollen. Then she then
covers them with wax.
The eggs are pearly white
and sausage-shaped, about
2.5 to 4 mm long, and placed
within reach of the honey
pot, thus enabling the queen
to brood the eggs (as birds
do) and drink honey at the
same time.
While bumblebees are
very “hairy,” the under-
side of the abdomen has
a brood patch, so the heat
from the queen’s body can
pass directly to the clump of
wax-covered eggs. During
this stage the queen rarely
leaves the eggs for long and
she keeps them at about 80
degrees F. If the temperature
falls below 80 degrees,
the larvae’s growth will be
stunted and all is lost.
After about four days the
eggs hatch, a statement that
doesn’t tell you the queen
may visit as many as 6,000
flowers per day in order to
get enough nectar to main-
tain the heat needed to brood
her eggs. During every for-
aging trip, the brood will
cool down, so the trips must
be short. That makes it vital
the nest is located close to
rewarding flowers.
When the eggs hatch, that
single, hard-working queen
must make thousands of trips
per day to feed her growing
larvae pollen, during which
See BUMBLE BEES on page 19
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