Queen bumblebees can be seen buzzing through the land in early spring as they forage for nectar and pollen and search for a nesting site. This illustration of a queen bumblebee flying over an expanse of grass is watercolor on paper.
Spring rains have soaked the ground where green grass currently thrives. Pointy twigs on trees and bushes are rounded with leaf buds. The first flowers of the year speckle the land. From the otherwise quiet landscape, a low hum sounds. Its source is a bumblebee, a big, round insect wearing a fuzzy black and yellow pattern, flying close to the ground. Bumblebees make their yearly debut in early spring when they emerge from hibernation. These individuals are not only some of the first bumblebees to stretch their wings; they are the queens.
The queen bumblebee rumbles through with an interest in the flowers. Early spring blooms are critical for queen bumblebees and other early-emerging insects who are on the search for their first taste of nectar for the year after a winter of dormancy. Without these flowers, queen bumblebees could starve, and any chance of forming a future colony would cease.
Flying low to the ground serves another purpose. If this queen has not done so already, she is looking for a place to nest. Her attention is focused on the bases of trees and other dark places where she occasionally hovers and lands to make closer inspections. An abandoned rodent burrow would be the perfect place to raise a colony. A mound of tall grass, a woodpile, or an upside-down flower pot would also work.
The colony into which the queen bumblebee was born died off last autumn, leaving her and other queens born at the end of summer last year as the remaining descendants, the sole heirs. They mated with short-lived males and then hibernated during winter. When the queens wake in spring, they begin their respective colonies alone, collecting nectar and pollen to fill waxy pots in their nests and taking care of their first young. Once a colony’s numbers increase with adult bees, the queen never leaves the nest again. The growing colony takes over her former duties and assumes the role of important pollinators, doing their crucial part in maintaining local ecosystems.
The queen bumblebee flying through the spring landscape marks the beginning of a very busy couple of months. Colonies preceded by this year’s queens will be committed to nonstop work for which a bee is well known. They and other pollinators maintain plants. And plants, in turn, maintain them. Aside from the rumbling buzz of their blurred wings in flight, bumblebees go about their business quietly and usually with little recognition. Meanwhile, the rewards that result from their efforts are reaped by many.