Bumble Bees
Bumblebees are flying insects of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae. Bumblebees feed on nectar and gather pollen to feed their young. These creatures are beneficial to both humans and plant life. They are important pollinators of both crops and wildflowers. Compared to other types of bees, bumblebees are larger, more visibly furry and the Queen and Worker bumblebees are capable of stinging more than once (their sting is not barbed like that of a honey bee). They have a very distinguishing characteristic of soft, long, branched setae, called pile, which covers their entire body, making them appear and feel fuzzy. These social insects have black and yellow body hairs, typically in bands.
Before bumblebees were available commercially, crops such as tomatoes had to be pollinated by hand with a vibrating wand. Not only was this very time-consuming, it wasn’t as efficient as bumblebees, so less flowers were pollinated and fruit was unevenly sized.
By using a technique known as “buzz pollination”, bumblebees have the ability to pollinate plant species that other pollinators cannot. Because of this, Bumblebees are actively cultured for agricultural use. Bumblebees are now used world-wide, both indoor and outdoor, for the pollination of tomato crops. This has resulted in enormous savings in labour costs, improvements of fruit quality and sometimes even increased production. Because of the success with tomatoes, the use of bumblebees has expanded to a range of other crops.
The agricultural use of bumblebees is limited to pollination. Because bumblebees do not over-winter the entire colony, they are not obligated to stockpile honey, and are therefore not useful as honey producers.
Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) are sold as complete hives consisting of one queen and a colony of worker bees. There is a self-contained nectar source inside the hive box.
