Bumblebees and bumblebee breeding

What is the life cycle of a patchouli?

Bumblebee mothers emerge from the ground later than bumblebee mothers, so they often hibernate deeper than the mothers of the target bumblebee species, so that spring awakens them later.

When the mother bumblebees wake up, they leave the hibernaculum, fortify themselves with nectar and pollen, just like the mother bumblebees. They then set out, persistently searching for existing bumblebee nests with workers .

It has been proven that the scent of the nest and the traces of workers in the area are their guide. The scent is also a guide to finding the species they are looking for (see the relationship between the species of bumblebee and the species of bumblebee).

But often they don't find such a place right away, only a settled mother bumblebee in the solitary phase (without workers). They leave such a mother alone - they want a nest with workers, with one or two generations.

Interesting fact

• Apparently, however, mother bumblebees are able to remember the place they found and return to it later – just as mother bumblebees choose between multiple nesting sites.
• Mother bumblebees must therefore wait until they find a nest with workers that they need as their slaves. However, the bumblebee nest must not be too strong, so that there are no strong workers and a large number of workers that they would no longer be able to overpower. Therefore, mother bumblebees constantly search for bumblebee nests by smell and wait for the right moment to attack.

If the mother patchouli finds the nest in the right condition, she will attack . If the path is clear, she will try to penetrate the nest.

Workers from several generations of bumblebees have a chance to win over the mother bumblebee in the corridor to the hive, where they can outnumber the larger mother bumblebee.
If the corridor has a small diameter (inner diameter) of less than 18 mm, only one worker will be able to resist the mother bumblebee. If the diameter is large, the mother bumblebee can bypass the workers. That is why we recommend a corridor width of 18 - 25 mm.

In a developed nest, it sometimes happens that strong workers kill or drive out the bumblebee, often costing several of them their lives.
Therefore, the bumblebee mother primarily seeks nests with one generation of workers , i.e. about 10 workers. These nests are also an easy target in bumblebee breeding in hives . Very often, beginners feel sorry for the small workers from the first generation and leave the hatch open for them . This is an opportunity for the bumblebee mothers .

If a mother patchouli breaks into the nest, all is usually lost.

The mother wasp first kills the largest workers that she cannot control. They are combative and are the first to resist her. She also kills these workers because they would lay drone (male) eggs in the future.

The next target is the mother . A fight ensues, and the physically better equipped mother of the pačmelák usually wins.

The mother patchouli leaves only the weaker workers alive, like slaves . She manages to control them with her pheromones and other chemicals. She applies these to them by roughly pressing them to the ground and rubbing herself against their backs and sides (mauling).

Jaromír Čížek describes how the mother wasp also uses chemicals . After eliminating resistance, she sprays the remaining workers with her pheromone, and they then treat her as if she were their mother – the queen.

Now the nest is taken over and the slave girls work for the mother patchouli .

Subsequently, the mother bumblebee consumes the eggs of the mother bumblebee, and possibly also the workers, and begins to lay her own eggs in the bumblebees' wax cells.

Interesting fact

• Bumblebees only eat eggs and not bumblebee larvae and pupae, which is why in addition to female and male bumblebees, queens and male bumblebees are sometimes born in an infested nest (in the case of late infestation) in smaller numbers.
• In some species, the coexistence of a bumblebee and a wood bumblebee has been observed – see, for example, the meadow bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) and the wood bumblebee (Psithyrus sylvestris)

With the help of existing bumblebee workers, including food delivery, the mother bumblebee queen establishes her own brood – a brood of female and male bumblebees, which, earlier than is the case with bumblebee families, leave the hive.

The newly born male and female bumblebees then fly out of the nest, where they find partners, mate, and then hibernate – similar to bumblebees.

In the spring, everything starts over, just like with bumblebees.