Happy Thought for 26 May 2023

 Have a Happy Thought:

Bumble bees are some of the happiest creatures out there. They’re just buzzing around, playing games, and finding pollen to get all over their round fuzzy bodies, right?

Unrelated, but I love it, the genus name is Bombus.

Image: A black and white fuzzy bumble bee on a purple flower: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsboroparksrec/50037359926 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)


And Wikipedia has some great descriptions:

  • Bumblebees vary in appearance, but are generally plump and densely furry.
  • The largest bumblebee species in the world is B. dahlbomii of Chile, up to about 40 mm (1.6 in) long, and described as "flying mice" and "a monstrous fluffy ginger beast"

Image: A very large ginger furry bumble bee on a green leaf: https://www.flickr.com/photos/20ojos/5503786213 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)


Turns out, these flying beach balls (not just the huge ginger ones) are also really smart, when it comes to… gardening?


Like, maybe it’s a bit of a dud summer, or not enough of their favourite plants are flowering.

Bumble bees will go around damaging leaves to make the plants flower (stress reproduction is a thing in plants), so that the bees can gather up all of that sweet sweet pollen!


Clever girls…


This short bit of science brought to you by Foteini G. Pashalidou et al., Bumble bees damage plant leaves and accelerate flower production when pollen is scarce. Science368,881-884(2020). DOI:10.1126/science.aay0496 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aay0496

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