Bumble Bees

Factual Questions
1

We’ve always had a bumble bee or two around the yard. No big deal, they seem pretty harmless. We have a sunroom and we frequently leave one of the sliding glass doors open a bit so it is easier to let the dogs out. Yesterday when I came home from work and let the dogs out to the sunroom I see them chasing something around in there. Happens all the time… some big bug or even sometimes a bird will get in there, but this time was different. Turns out it was a bumble bee. No problem, I’ll try to shoo it out the open door. When I got out there with a towel I realize it isn’t just one bumble bee… when all is done I figure out there were NINE! I only got two out and the dogs got most of the others (I put a couple out of their misery).

I always thought bumble bees were fairly solitary bugs as I’ve never seen more than two in any place at a time. We’ve lived here for 13 years and never had a “swarm” before. We don’t have flowers or anything in the sun room, in fact we just changed the cushions on the chairs from a green to a brown shade.

What caused the sudden outburts of bumbles and why would they have all decided to go into our sun room? I haven’t seen any today so I hope we haven’t wiped out the population in our area.

2

Are you sure it was a bumble bee, and not a Carpenter bee? If they were Carpenter bees, start looking for holes in decaying wood - siding, for example.

3

Looking at the Wiki article, I notice that they form colonies like honeybees, but smaller. So they aren’t solitary.

4

I think you may be right. I looked at some of the dead ones and the hind end looks more black than yellow. I don’t know where they would be coming from though since our house is brick on the bottom and fiber cement siding on the top. Would they live in mulch?

5

Here’s the key to differentiating them - Bumble Bees are fuzzy - Carpenter Bees have a shiny body. They are attracted to decaying wood. I don’t think mulch qualifies, but a dead tree branch, or a wood fence is very attractive to them.

6

Here’s a photo closeup I took of a carpenter bee in flight.

Bee

As you can see, there’s a little bit of fuzziness on the abdomen, but it’s still visibly shiny.

7

There ar many kindsof bumblebee and solitary bees. A carpenter bee is just one of them.

However, they not only seem harmless, they truly are harmless. Don’t worry.

8

Our neighbor just found a bumblebee nest in his house siding and we oohed and aahed over it. They normally nest in the ground, and it’s the first time I’d ever seen one in a house.

He poked it with a stick :dubious: repeatedly :smack: but the bees remained very docile and didn’t attack. About a dozen of them buzzed about in circles, then went back to the nest (a loose pile of insulation and grass). It was still morning and fairly cold, so they were still groggy–it must have been before their cup of morning nectar.