Bee???

jopax

Can anyone tell me if this is a bee, I've just taken this photo from my outside wall. The eyes are really freaking me out.

Alun

It's a poor harmless bumble bee. How that can "freak" anybody out is beyond me.

jopax

Alun wrote: »

It's a poor harmless bumble bee. How that can "freak" anybody out is beyond me.

It's the eyes

Alun

jopax wrote: »

It's the eyes

Look the other way

jopax

Alun wrote: »

Look the other way

Oh yes, definitely looks much better ðŸ˜

fryup

queen bumble bee?

Alun

Definitely a queen this time of year.

They're the only ones who overwinter, all the males and workers die off at the end of each year. The queens you see in spring are looking for nests to lay their eggs and fertilize them with sperm stored up from the previous year The eggs turn into grubs and then bees, all workers initially but then later on males and new queens. She dies at the end of the year and passes the baton on to the next batch of queens, and so the cycle goes on.

jopax

Alun wrote: »

Definitely a queen this time of year.

They're the only ones who overwinter, all the males and workers die off at the end of each year. The queens you see in spring are looking for nests to lay their eggs and fertilize them with sperm stored up from the previous year The eggs turn into grubs and then bees, all workers initially but then later on males and new queens. She dies at the end of the year and passes the baton on to the next batch of queens, and so the cycle goes on.

Ah that's so cool, I thought it was a funny time of year to see a bee. I never knew any of that, very interesting, thanks.

Alun

We get loads in our garden, and some find their way into our conservatory at the back of the house as it's nice and warm on spring days like this. Problem is they then get stuck and can't find the way out so I spend a lot of time at this time of the year catching them before they fall prey to the spiders hiding up in the nooks and crannys and releasing them back into the garden.