There are many different species of bees, but we will look at two that visit our farm. Pay attention to which bee shakes the clover.
But, there are definite differences in these two bees. Both belong to the same scientific family (Apidae), but to different genera. That means they are very distant cousins. Here are a few of the differences:
1. Size, shape and color are obvious in the video.
2. Bumblebee is a term for a group of different species- there are many (49 in USA) species (or cousins) of bumblebees with different colors. Honeybees were brought to the USA by the Europeans in the 1600’s. There are a lot fewer honeybee species, with many subspecies.
3. Bumblebees have smaller colonies (up to 400) and are usually wild. Honeybees mainly live in hives where the honey is stored for winter or for commercial use. These hives may have up to 40,000 bees.
4. The stingers on honeybees stick into the skin and are ripped from the bee’s body causing the death of the honeybee after stinging. The bumblebee has a smooth stinger that is not left behind after stinging. Thus the act of “stinging” does not kill the bumblebee and this bee can live to sting again.
Both of these bees OLNY sting if they feel threatened.
5. Honeybees produce honey from nectar (nectar from flowers) to feed the colony and the extra honey usually goes to human consumption. Bumblebees do not produce honey and the colony dies out each year except for the new queen. The new Queen survives the winter and produces a new colony.
6. Pollination: Bumblebees are much better than honeybees in pollinating flowers. Bumblebees and Honeybees both have pollen baskets which distributes pollen, but Bumblebees actually shake the flowers (coating their bodies with pollen) and spreads more pollen to other flowers. In addition, different bumble bees have different lengths of tongues and this allows them to access a wide range of flowers. Honeybees have shorter tongues and usually need to seek open flowers.