Bombus sylvestris
| Bombus sylvestris | |
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| Male | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Apidae |
| Genus: | Bombus |
| Subgenus: | (Psithyrus) |
| Species: | B. sylvestris |
| Binomial name | |
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Bombus sylvestris (Le Peletier, 1832) |
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| Synonyms | |
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The forest cuckoo bumblebee or four-coloured cuckoo bee,Bombus sylvestris, is a species of cuckoo bumblebee, found in most of Europe and the Russian part of Asia. Its main hosts are Bombus pratorum, Bombus jonellus, and Bombus monticola. As a cuckoo bumblebee, Bombus sylvestris lays its eggs in another bumblebee’s nest. This type of bee leaves their young to the workers of another nest for rearing, allowing cuckoo bumblebees to invest minimal energy and resources in their young while still keeping the survival of their young intact.
Bombus sylvestris belongs to the order Hymenoptera. Specifically, the species falls under the family Apidae, which further subdivides into the subfamily Apinae, and then the tribe Bombini.
This is a small bumblebee; the queen has a body length of 15 mm (0.59 in) and the male one of 14 mm (0.55 in). The head is round, and the proboscis is short. Its fur is black with a yellow collar and a white tail. Sometimes, the bumblebee can have a few pale hairs on top of its head, its scutellum, and/or on its tergite (abdominal segment). The male is variably melanistic. Those rarely found in northern Scotland have an abdomen that is yellow instead of white.
The cuckoo bee has many physical differences from ordinary bumblebees. Cuckoo female bees do not have pollen baskets on their rear legs. Most cuckoo bumblebees also do not produce wax from between their abdominal segments, although there is evidence that the Bombus sylvestris bumblebee secretes wax.
Since B. sylvestris lacks the ability to excrete wax, it is neither capable of producing eggs cells that enclose their eggs, nor does it have the capacity to create honey pots from which newly emerged broods may feed upon. However, this serves well in the defense of cuckoo bees, as there are no weak points between the abdominal segments of the cuckoo bee for other bees to pierce through using their stingers. Moreover, cuckoo bumblees are slightly less hairy, have shorter tongues, have more pointed abdomens, and contain much sturdier bodies than normal bees.
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Wikipedia