Sleeping rough

It is a short life but a happy one for male bumblebees - flying, drinking and chasing females.  One drawback is that when it is cold or wet or dark (like this past weekend) they have nowhere to live.  Once the males leave the nest they don't return so they have to sleep out.  They are often to be found sheltering and sleeping under flowers that give some protection from the elements, such as these globe thistles (Echinops).

When they are all wet and bedraggled it can be difficult to tell the species (or the sex).  This one is easy - a male red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius).

Another very wet red-tailed bumblebee.

And the one on the right here is a male white-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum), our yellowest bumblebee.  I am not sure about the others.

I think this is a male cuckoo bumblebee but I am not sure which species.

This cuckoo bee fell off a flower and landed on a leaf below.  It seemed too cold to fly back up but fortunately landed in the dry.

New queen bumblebees can return to their nest overnight while it is still functioning* but the nest only lasts for about four months and then the old queen and the workers all die.  So the new queens may also sleep out while they are building up their strength before hibernating.  I think these are new queens under the Echinops, probably buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris).

Another queen was hiding in a buddleia flower close by.

This queen found a drier spot under a leaf.

I was surprised to see a honey bee camping out when it had a warm dry hive to return to only 40m away.  It has very worn wings so may be near the end of its short life.

The bumblebee season is already coming to an end.  Soon all the queens will be hibernating and all the males and workers will be dead.

*Goulson D. Bumblebees: Their Behaviour and ecology (2003). Oxford University Press.