Floral Visitors, bumble bee problem

Tim Eck teck11@embarqmail.com
Sun, 02 Aug 2015 14:37:48 PDT
It might be +4K on Pluto but not in Germany.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: pbs [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Garak
> Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2015 4:30 PM
> To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [pbs] Floral Visitors, bumble bee problem
> 
> Hi Åke ,
> 
> I'm not sure if it's one or more species - I'm not good at telling
bumblebees
> apart, basically anything winged that looks slightly overweight is a
bumblebee
> to me. A quick Wikipedia check makes Bombus Hortorum a likely candidate.
> Definitely some sort with a white tip of the lower body. As I said: this
> Summer was extraordinary dry and hot in southern germany - July saw +4K
> on average Temperature and about 40% of average rain after a series of
very
> dry months. I think it had a disastrous effect on meadows, so that even
> clover and dandelion ceased flowering.
> Mirabilis Jalapa will see another month or two of flowering (one for
> hibernated tubers, two for seedlings), so I hope you're right and the
queens
> won't learn that trick. In worst case scenario I'll have to pause a year
and
> hope no on else has them - Mirabilis isn't that popular around here
('cause
> most people have no taste in flowers ;) ).
> 
> Greetings,
> Martin
> 
> Am 02.08.2015 um 20:13 schrieb Åke Nordström:
> > Hi Martin!
> >
> > I don't know for how long your Mirabilis will keep on flowering, but at
the
> end of the season when the last bumble bee larvae are produced - the ones
> that are going to be new queens and produce the new colonies next season,
> I would guess the flowering is over. If so, the new queens will stick to
other
> food sources and will not be able to learn this habit and they can't pass
it on
> to next season and bumble bee generation. Of course, if it happened once
it
> can happen again, but I guess something must have happened to their main
> food plants this year so this was just a coincidence. Do you know what
> species of bumble bee it was? Or was it more than one species?
> >
> > Greetings from Åke in northern Sweden, where the summer is still cold
> (12-15 C) and wet.
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> pbs mailing list
> pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/




More information about the pbs mailing list