The biology of Bumblebees 

Our bumblebees belong to the specie Bombus terrestris and the Apidae family.

Bumblebees build a colony, but unlike common bees, they are "annual" and live only one summer.

Common bees overwinter as a colony with the queen and workers. A queen can live for several years, but she cannot survive away from her colony.

Since bumblebees do not overwinter like common bees, they do not store large amounts of food. Mostly, they feed on the collected nectar and pollen during the day during the night in their colony and the workers have to fly the next day to collect new food. This guarantees a steady activity of the bumblebees colony and ensures good fertilization regardless of temperature and rainfall.

In nature, a bumblebees colony begins to form in early spring by a queen that overwinters on the ground.

Early in the spring, due to rising temperatures, the young queen bumblebee wakes up from her hibernation, leaves her winter nest and returns to the earth's surface. Soon after, the new queen is supplied with nectar and pollen to strengthen herself after the winter and begins to look for a suitable place to create her new colony.

Most of them are abandoned mouse nests. Once the queen chooses the new colony creation area, she builds a small container of wax where she will store nectar. This candle is produced by the queen's abdomen.

After that, she begins collecting pollen and nectar from the surrounding area. Nectar is introduced into the wax container and the collected pollen creates small balls (mixed with nectar) as a supply for the future colony.

The young queen places a group of fertilized eggs on the pollen balls. To warm the future colony and keep it warm, the queen lays her eggs. The underside of her body is hairless. This allows it to efficiently transfer heat. Thus, it maintains the future colony at a temperature of about 30 ° C. During this time, it leaves the colony only for short pollen and nectar collection flights.

As soon as young larvae hatch from the eggs, they feed on pollen and nectar (pollen ball). Pollen is rich in protein and helps larvae grow quickly. After about 10-14 days the larvae pass to the stage of larvae and after another two weeks the first young workers hatch.

From now on, the workers will feed the colony, as well as collect nectar and pollen. The queen is no longer leaving the colony. Its duty now is mainly to lay eggs. Depending on the availability of pollen and nectar, a bumblebee population of 80-400 people can develop.

At the end of the colony's development, there will be only queens and male bumblebees. The young queens mate with the male bombs.

The young mated queens eat a kind of protein and go to spend the winter on the ground. The old queen gets sick and decomposes.

Young bumblebees dig in the ground and overwinter.