While admiring flowers this spring, you may have noticed huge trundling bumblebees clinging awkwardly to the blooms like Royal Ascot hats. Those ladies-living-large are queen bees. They have just emerged from their long winter hibernation; precious survivors from the previous year's colonies. You see, no one in a bumblebee colony survives past Autumn, save the new young queens. Not the reigning queen, not the workers, not the male drones. The future of a colony rests on the wings of its spring queens. It's a ferocious business, being a bumblebee.
The mission of a spring queen is to establish a colony of her own. More often than not, this mission fails. Critical to its success is an abundance of food - spring nectar and pollen - to feed herself and her workers-to-be. Her wings must carry her to the early blooms of the year: dandelions, cherries, crabapples, lilacs, violets, lupine, arrowleaf balsamroot, trillium, false Solomon's seal, Oregon grape... the more diverse, the better. Because bumblebee health, just like ours, is supported by a varied diet rich in nutrients.
Our queen needs to visit thousands of flowers each day to gather all the food she needs. But her young wings can only carry her so far. Less than a mile, in fact. The more dense and diverse an area is in flowering trees, shrubs, and herbs, the higher her chances are to not only survive, but thrive. The wider area covered by this bounty, the better chance her sister queens thrive, the colony survives, and their species endures into the future. And the more bumblebees we have, the greater abundance of food and flowers we reap as a reward for our stewardship.
Are you interested in creating a feast fit for spring queen bumblebee? Contact our Bees To Bears Citizen Science Coordinator, Kristina Boyd, at kristina.boyd@idfg.idaho.gov.