Pollinator of the Month: Hunt’s Bumble Bee (Bombus huntii)
The hunt’s bumble bee (Bombus huntii) is a species of bumble bee that is native to western North America. They are a medium-sized bee (9-20 mm) with a medium tongue length, which allows it to feed on a variety of flowers. It has a distinctive color pattern, with a yellow face and head, a yellow scutum (the upper part of the thorax), a black inter-allar space (the area between the wings), a yellow scutellum (the posterior part of the thorax). Their abdomen consists of a yellow tergite 1 (the first segment of the abdomen), red-orange tergites 2 and 3, a yellow tergite 4, and a black tergite 5. They are commonly confused with tricoloured bumble bee and orange-rumped bumble bee. However, hunt’s bumble bee has more yellow on its face and head compared to the tricoloured bumble bee and the orange-rumped bumble bee has black and yellow hairs on their face, head and thorax.
The hunt’s bumble bee is a social insect, with a caste system of workers and a queen, and division of labor among the colony members with the queen reproducing and the workers raising the young and finding food. This is similar to the social structure of honeybees. However, bumble bees have an annual life cycle, in which only the newly emerged fertilized queens survive the winter by hibernating underground. This differs from the honeybee who lives for multiple years. In the spring, the queens emerge and search for a suitable nest site.
The queens then lay eggs and rear the first batch of workers, who take over the tasks of foraging, nest maintenance, and brood care. The colony grows throughout the summer, producing more workers and eventually males and new queens. The males and new queens mate, and the old queen and workers die by the end of the season.
The hunt’s bumble bee is an important pollinator, commonly interacting with plants, such as yarrow, Canadian milkvetch, fireweed, purple prairie clover, shrubby cinquefoil, American licorice, prairie sunflower, hairy golden aster, silky lupine, wild bergamot, goldenrods, western snowberry, and smooth aster. They have been developed for commercial pollination of crops, which poses a threat to their survival because this process involves stealing queens from their nests. They are also threatened by the introduction of diseases from honey bees, such as the deformed wing virus, which can infect and harm bumble bees. Though despite these threats the hunt’s bumble bee is commonly observed in Calgary.
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