With the arrival of spring, bumblebee queens take their first wing beat of the season and set out to find new nesting sites.
With the arrival of spring, bumblebee queens take their first wing beat of the season and set out to find new nesting sites. But they are flying earlier in the year, as a result of a warmer climate and a changing agricultural landscape, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden.
“We risk losing additional bumblebee species, and having less pollination of crops and wild plants”, says researcher Maria Blasi Romero at Lund University.
When spring arrives and the ground warms up, bumblebee queens wake up from hibernation. Contrary to workers and males, queens are the only bumblebees that survive the winter, and they spend a couple of weeks finding a place to nest, where they can lay eggs and start a colony.
Read more at: Lund University
A Bombus terrestris queen, one of the bumblebees that usually fly earliest in spring. (Photo Credit: Maria Blasi Romero)
