I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?

In article , "Ook" Ook
Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the Don't send
me any freakin' spam says...
I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?



Are you sure they are bumble bees and not carpenter bees which can look
similar.
--
Lar

to email get rid of the BUGS

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...
I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed
that in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and
curl up and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of
sleeping bumble bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have
colonies, but I'm guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone
else ever see this?


I notice this when the nights are cooler, and I wonder if they run out of
energy & can't make it back to the hive. Just a guess, though.

Are you sure they are bumble bees and not carpenter bees which can look
similar.
--
Lar



Hmm...here it is. Any guesses? Not the best of pics, they are folded up and
sleeping. Tomorrow I'll try to get some better pics. They spend all day
buzzing around the various flowers, they love my sunflowers.

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4827.jpg
http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4829.jpg

In article , "Ook" Ook
Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the Don't send
me any freakin' spam says...
Hmm...here it is. Any guesses? Not the best of pics, they are folded up and
sleeping. Tomorrow I'll try to get some better pics. They spend all day
buzzing around the various flowers, they love my sunflowers.



Couldn't tell by the pics. The male carp bee will have a white face
along with a hairless abdomen, where the bumble bees abdomen will be
hairy.... heat must be getting to me because I didn't even think about
this time of year being when drone bumblebees will make their appearance
and they will live away from the bee colony, so very possible it is
bumblebees you are seeing...the drone has no stinger, so a test of sort
would be to pick one up bare handed
--
Lar

to email get rid of the BUGS

Ook wrote:
I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?

Ook:

I know very little about Bees other than as you say, they are good
polinators. I live in California and last year I had these very laid
back, pugdy, very fuzzy, big black bumble bees show up during the
summer when my beans were in bloom. Literally, if I was trying to pick
my beans they would bump into my face (or arm or or) and then they
would simply carry on. It was lovely having them in my garden. I
garden in a community garden so naturally I never saw them when they
sleep but I have read that some bees like to rest in soil and leaves.
Maybe someone else will post with more information.

Since Lars mentioned some types of bees I went to googles image gallery
and I found these:

http://www.pestproducts.com/images/bumble-carpenter.jpg

http://www.govlink.org/.../house/images/bumblebee.jpg

Maybe these pictures will help.

Couldn't tell by the pics. The male carp bee will have a white face
along with a hairless abdomen, where the bumble bees abdomen will be
hairy.... heat must be getting to me because I didn't even think about
this time of year being when drone bumblebees will make their appearance
and they will live away from the bee colony, so very possible it is
bumblebees you are seeing...the drone has no stinger, so a test of sort
would be to pick one up bare handed
--
Lar


They are definitely fuzzy. Um...I think I'll pass on the stinger test :P.
I'll take a close look tomorrow. I have this flower bush out front that
usually has 10-20 of the critters buzzing around it at any time. Something
about the bush attracts them, not sure what it is.

Ook wrote:
Couldn't tell by the pics. The male carp bee will have a white face
along with a hairless abdomen, where the bumble bees abdomen will be
hairy.... heat must be getting to me because I didn't even think about
this time of year being when drone bumblebees will make their appearance
and they will live away from the bee colony, so very possible it is
bumblebees you are seeing...the drone has no stinger, so a test of sort
would be to pick one up bare handed
--
Lar



They are definitely fuzzy. Um...I think I'll pass on the stinger test :P.
I'll take a close look tomorrow. I have this flower bush out front that
usually has 10-20 of the critters buzzing around it at any time. Something
about the bush attracts them, not sure what it is.


I find bees asleep on zinnias. The first time wass early evening and I
thought the bee was dead but I watched him wake up the next mornng.

Kate

Some of the bumblebees sleep in the open to defeat a parasite that will
eventually kill them.
By sleeping in the open they remain cooler slowing the parasites
development and allowing them to continue provisioning for their young
during the daytime.

http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entom...97/rempel.html
Bumblebees, Bombus spp., on the other hand appear to have successfully
mastered the use of
altered behavior for their own advantage. Mueller and Schmid-Hempel
(1993) reported that the
parasitized worker bumblebees stayed in the field overnight instead of
returning to the nest. These
workers spent significantly more time in cold areas than did
nonparasitized workers. The cold
temperatures experienced by the bumblebees retarded parasitoid
development and decreased the
parasitoid's survival chances. The parasitized worker's colony
benefited from the prolonged foraging in
the cold night air, and the worker had a prolonged life span as a
result of the reduced development rate
of the parasitoid. Poulin (1992) argues that these changes in
behaviors of parasitized bumblebee
workers are likely to be an adaptive response of the host resulting in
greater inclusive fitness. He
notes that this may be one of the few examples of Smith Trail's (1980)
kin selected-host suicide
hypothesis in practice in nature.




Ook wrote:
I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?

They are definitely fuzzy. Um...I think I'll pass on the stinger test :P.
I'll take a close look tomorrow. I have this flower bush out front that
usually has 10-20 of the critters buzzing around it at any time. Something
about the bush attracts them, not sure what it is.

This fuzzy fellow spent the night he

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4867.jpg

Anyone know what kind of plant this is? The bumble bees love it, and are
attracted to it. I can find a dozen of them buzzing around it at any given
time.

And this fuzzy fellow spent the night on this sunflower leaf:

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4861.jpg

In article , "Ook" Ook
Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the Don't send me
any freakin' spam wrote:

I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?

Fat bumblebees on my lavenders work diligently until the sun goes down,
then go to sleep on the flower, & start up work as soon as the morning sun
reaches them again. The colonies are small and it's quite possible not all
the bees can fit all at once so some of them have no choice but to sleep
on flowers, but maybe it's just that they get "caught" in the chill of
evening. They're tame as can be, I sometimes pet them as they work.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
visit my temperate gardening website:
http://www.paghat.com.html
visit my film reviews webiste:
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com

On 8/28/06 11:42 AM, in article
, "Ook" Ook Don't send me any
freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the Don't send me any freakin' spam
wrote:


They are definitely fuzzy. Um...I think I'll pass on the stinger test :P.
I'll take a close look tomorrow. I have this flower bush out front that
usually has 10-20 of the critters buzzing around it at any time. Something
about the bush attracts them, not sure what it is.

This fuzzy fellow spent the night he

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4867.jpg

Anyone know what kind of plant this is? The bumble bees love it, and are
attracted to it. I can find a dozen of them buzzing around it at any given
time.
That's a bit to close up to make a guess, but it looks similar to the sweet
spire that is in wonderful bloom here. (NH) Smells like heaven. Also covered
in bumbles, mud daubers and other flying critters.


And this fuzzy fellow spent the night on this sunflower leaf:

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4861.jpg

Ook wrote:
I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?



I've taken many digital pictures, and PETTED very very carefully,
sleeping bumble bees in the early hours of the day as they slept on
flowers. I love how they turn their leg backwards as if they're some
reluctant teenager who just can't wake up for school...........I
carefully stroke the fuzzy back and guess they're not warmed up yet.
I've done this for years, after noticing it myself once I moved into
this house and have so much nature around me.
madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 where I found
three sleeping bumblies on my willow leaf rudbeckia's this morning after
the intense thunderstorms and rains of last night

Ook wrote:
They are definitely fuzzy. Um...I think I'll pass on the stinger test :P.
I'll take a close look tomorrow. I have this flower bush out front that
usually has 10-20 of the critters buzzing around it at any time. Something
about the bush attracts them, not sure what it is.

This fuzzy fellow spent the night he

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4867.jpg

Anyone know what kind of plant this is? The bumble bees love it, and are
attracted to it. I can find a dozen of them buzzing around it at any given
time.

And this fuzzy fellow spent the night on this sunflower leaf:

http://zootal.no-ip.info/stuff/2006%...s/DSCF4861.jpg


that looks like the flowers of a succulent/sedum. the other fliers love
it too (the assorted little wasp like fairy fliers. All my sedums, aka
Matrona, Raspberry ice, Autumn Joy, Lynda Windsor, Kamtschaticum
Variegata,Angelina, Turkish stars, Little pickles, the old fashioned
green ones that have white star-like flowers, they all attract the
fliers, the bumblies, the wasps and teensy wasp like things. I've taken
some awesome pictures of these gorgeous flowers. And the Sempervivums
(hens and chickens) which are succulents as well and hardy also have
flowers that are similar.
madgardener

"John Bachman" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:18:46 -0400, madgardener
wrote:

Ook wrote:
I have hundreds of bumblebees in my garden, and they are gentle like
honey
bees and love my sunflowers and squash. Good polinators. I have noticed
that
in the evenings, a lot of them find a nice cozy leaf or flower and curl
up
and spend the night there. In the morning, I have a bunch of sleeping
bumble
bees all over the garden. According to wiki they have colonies, but I'm
guessing they do not always spend the night there? Anyone else ever see
this?



I've taken many digital pictures, and PETTED very very carefully,
sleeping bumble bees in the early hours of the day as they slept on
flowers. I love how they turn their leg backwards as if they're some
reluctant teenager who just can't wake up for school...........I
carefully stroke the fuzzy back and guess they're not warmed up yet.
I've done this for years, after noticing it myself once I moved into
this house and have so much nature around me.
madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36 where I found
three sleeping bumblies on my willow leaf rudbeckia's this morning after
the intense thunderstorms and rains of last night

No need to wait for them to be sleeping. Bumbles are pretty docile.
You can pet them as they work, just do not squeeze.

I have shown my grandchildren how to do it, when my stepdaughter is
not looking. She would be horrified.

I want them to learn that 'bees' are not necessarily something bad
even though Mom goes screaming across the yard at the sight of
anything that might have a stinger. That includes dragonflies for
cripes sake.

John

She would've needed sedation if she saw what went on in my boat this past
weekend. I was fishing and a dragonfly landed on my shoulder and just sat
there for almost 5 minutes. If I'd seen it before my friend, it would've
been a shock, but I was warned beforehand. Very cool creature.