honey bee vs. Bumble bee

uglyfrozenfish · May 12, 2011, 05:52:02 PM

hi all,
my wife had an interesting question I thought I would ask here. She wondered if bumbles and honeys got along? Do they ignore each other. Do they stage cage matches or re-inact david vs. Goliath? We were wondering because I found where some bumbles made a nest near our orchard.thanks for your answers I look foreward to finding out.

lee

Brian D. Bray · May 12, 2011, 07:59:22 PM

Honeybees, Bumbles, and Mason bees pretty much ignore each other.

AllenF · May 12, 2011, 10:20:30 PM

hardwood · May 12, 2011, 10:27:56 PM

Bumbles (and Carpenter bees) will try to enter a hive on occasion. I find bits and pieces of them in front of the hives all the time.

Scott

jmblakeney · May 12, 2011, 10:40:25 PM

Quote from: hardwood on May 12, 2011, 10:27:56 PM
Bumbles (and Carpenter bees) will try to enter a hive on occasion.

I saw this happening for the first time today. It was very interesting, I watched for a while hoping to see a fight but the bumble bee finally backed off and left.

James

schawee · May 12, 2011, 11:40:14 PM

i waa sitting in one of my bee yards and about 15 to 20 bumble bees came and tried to get in the hives .i wish i had my camera with me because it was something to see.the honeybees balled everyone of the bumble bees and killed everyone of them. ...schawee

Shanevrr · May 12, 2011, 11:47:58 PM

no kidding....thats amazing. You should have and sold video to animal planet lol. You would think bumbles are tougher than that lol

SerenaSYH · May 13, 2011, 03:30:34 AM

EGADS, guys :shock: one of my pet peeves is when people mix up bumblebees with carpenter bees. HUGE DIFFERENCE! they look identical but they're not! please don't get bumblebees mixed up with the carpenters. Carpenters are much more aggressive and also absentmindedly clumsy and rather stupid. A bumblebee prefers being alone and doing its own thing, whereas carpenters like to get into things. Carpenters also try to stake out their territory and tend to chase other bees out. I constantly see so many silly YouTubers get Carpenters mixed up with bumblebees that I want to scream, but I have no time to correct these folks. Zillions of people get them mixed up! Bumblebees like to seek shelter in the ground, carpenter bees prefer higher up where all the wood patios are at, those dang pests! and they stake higher up like honeybees do, so I can easily see them trying to intrude on a honeybee hive. Carpenter bees look identical to bumblebees with very cute fur and fat yellow band, but the only difference is STUPIDITY, much louder buzz, and shiny black back and they are also significantly larger. They are so stupid that they don't know how to get nectar and pollen out properly. Instead they slice through the stamens of the bloom. They are not beneficial pollinators because of this. Also some wasps try to pretend to be bees and will invade a hive. Probably plenty of carcasses of the pseudo-bees....

joebrown · May 13, 2011, 03:37:28 AM

Quote from: schawee on May 12, 2011, 11:40:14 PM
i waa sitting in one of my bee yards and about 15 to 20 bumble bees came and tried to get in the hives .i wish i had my camera with me because it was something to see.the honeybees balled everyone of the bumble bees and killed everyone of them. ...schawee

One of my hives was acting crazy one afternoon and I knew something was up. So I popped the top and sure enough they where balled up on a bumble bee. Poor thing never stood a chance!