Bumble Bees (11/4/20)

Bumblebees are social insects like their relatives the honey bees. They live in very small colonies of 50 to 400 with a single queen. But rather than building hives, bumblebees make nests that look like piles of ground debris. As per their cousins, they collect nectar and are important pollinators. Their recent decline is a big concern across North America, Europe and Asia. It is attributed to habitat loss, agricultural mechanization and pesticides. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee>

These specimens were photographed on a walk through our neighborhood in early Spring 2020 and on Black Moshannon Lake from a kayak in mid-summer approximately 10 years ago.