The Blog at Help Save Bees

One of the most striking of the Six main Bumblebees of the British Isles: The Red Tailed Bumblebee - Bombus lapidarius

Pic1 (female) & Pic2 (male)

Red-Tailed Bumblebee - Bombus lapidarius

My favourite Bumblebee is the wonderfully named Bombus lapidarius: The Red-Tailed Bumblebee (previously known as Pyrobombus lapidarius). It is sometimes known as the ‘Stone Bumblebee’, from the Germanic languages (cf. German 'Steinhummel' or Swedish 'Stenumla'), which has possibly come about from their preference to nest underground in cavities beneath slabs of rock or quite often in old rodent nests, such as mice, and at the base of dry stone dykes, walls or cairns; where there may find a small cavity.

They can occasionally be found making their home in old bird’s nests, nesting boxes or even straw in abandoned stables, and once established, the size of the nest colony can vary considerably from less than 100 to over 200 worker bees.

It is the most easily recognisable of the big six bumblebees, because of its lustrous hairy black body, tipped with the most striking burnt orange tail. It is also one of the largest, with queens being 20-26mm long. The queens tend to appear from hibernation in the spring about a month later (late April) than their more commonly seen cousins, the White-Tailed (Bombus lucorum) and Buff-Tailed (Bombus terrestris) bumblebees. Although in warmer springs, like this year, they appeared in mid to late March.

The workers (11-16mm) have a similar colouring pattern as the queen, but they are much smaller and appear quite late, towards the end of May and some of the early workers are no bigger than house flies. The males (14-16mm) of this species are distinguished from the queens and workers by their tufted stripe of yellow hair on their face (thorax) and their typically hairy ‘moustache’. Although occasionally this bumblebee has been mistaken for the Hoverfly (Volucella bombylans, var. bombylans).

Commonly seen in gardens and hedgerows, they are increasingly seen throughout the British Isles and parts of Western Europe. They have comparatively short tongues and prefer flowers that form a distinct landing platform, such as daisies, dandelions and thistles. The heads of these flowers are made up of lots of small florets each containing only a small quantity of nectar. While on these flowers the bees tend to probe many times and stumble around the flower rather than feed whilst hovering, gathering a reasonable amount of food from each flower head before moving on.

This species of bumblebee easily adepts itself to man made changes in the natural environment. It will adopt even small beds of flowers in the middle of big cities and welcomes parks, gardens, and the fringes of woodlands, even though it will never live within forests. It visits well over 200 species of flowers, including many exotic garden species.

The old queens die each year with the onset of the first frosts of winter, with only the young new fertilized Queen surviving to hibernate over the winter, underground or under moss to keep warm. In spring she will make wax pots to lay the first batch of eggs in and these will hatch into infertile female workers/drones about three weeks later. Once the first batch is active they will take over collection of food (nector and pollen), which the larvae are reared on, plus the building of new cells in the nest for the young, while the queen concentrates solely on egg laying. Later broods have males which can only collect nectar, as they do not have pollen baskets.

Male bees are not hatched until late summer (from eggs laid by the workers as the queen's ability to suppress reproduction declines) and as autumn approaches they will leave the nest to mate never to return, as the males leave the nest, so do any new queens and once mating has occurred the males die. Unlike other social insects the worker bees are capable of laying eggs but the Queen suppresses the ability to breed through aggression and pheromone chemical suppressants. And once again, the cycle begins again, with the newly fertilised queen searching for a safe place to hibernate.

All bumblebee males patrol mating circuits, laying down a pheromone to attract new queens. The pheromone is used to scent-mark prominent objects (tree trunks, rocks, posts, etc) on the circuit. The circuit is marked in the morning and again after rain. Apparently, the scent of some species can be detected by some humans. Usually they patrol at species specific heights. Bombus lapidarius males patrol at tree-top height, but this will depend on the habitat.

Whilst most bumblebee species are unlikely to sting unless its nest is endangered, the Red-Tailed bumblebee is possibly more unpleasant then some of the others and will often fly menacingly around the heads of intruders, should they be in the near vicinity of their nest. In almost all other encounters, they, like all bumblebees, are the most gentle of creatures.

As with some other Bumblebees, there is a Cuckoo Bumblebee which targets the Red-tailed Bumblebee by laying its eggs in place of the host - the species is called Bombus rupestris (previously known as Psithyrus rupestris), which I shall cover in a different blog post.

Predators of Red-Tailed Bumblebees

The main threat to this bumblebee, apart from man and his influence on habitat through pesticides and destruction of the environment, are badgers, wood mice & yellow–necked mice, that tend to dig up their nests.

As with all types of British bumblebee the Red-Tailed is suffering a decline in numbers as their natural countryside habitats come under increasing threat and gardens are an increasingly important habitat for these species, where they reward us by pollinating a wide range of garden plants, flowers, vegetables and fruit trees, particularly Apple trees.

You can help by encouraging bees into your garden by creating artificial nesting boxes and mowing your lawn less in the summer if it has any clover in it, as the bees love clover, plus all these other plants.