Thursday, November 4, 2010

Winter activity of Greek Bumble bees

The other day (November) I was on the hills at the Khalkidhiki peninsula arter a two week rainy period… It was about 4 in the evening when I heard the familiar buzz. A Bombus terrestris queen was nest searching! In this area, from my observations so far I have come to the conclusion that Bombus terrestris is active almost all year round. The season seems to start for the young queens in fall after a rainy period and they will have a nest going by mid December. During this period the strawberry tree Arbutus unedo is in bloom which is a very good food source for the newly founded colony.

(photo from http://tree-species.blogspot.com)

1 comments:

sharp green pencil said...

Hi from Val at Pencil and leaf blog. Thankyou for your inclusion in the beeblog list!! I am very interested in your Greek Bumble bees. I hope you will do more posts. I wish you well with the blog list . The bees certainly need us! kind regards Val