Bumblebee identification
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BBCT members get to discover all about the fascinating lives of bumblebees, and how to identify the different types. You'll also be supporting our conservation work and helping us to replace some of the wildflower habitats that the UK has lost.
Adult membership starts at just £1 per month. Click here for more information...
What bee did I see?
There are lots of different types of bee in Britain - around 250 different species, including 24 bumblebees, the honeybee and numerous small solitary species. Was it a bumblebee that you saw?
A
honeybee, a typical bumblebee and a small solitary bee
(from left to right)
It was definitely a bumblebee - now what species was it?
You could print out our guide to the common garden bumblebees, or work through
the following online guide
The Big Six - bumblebees commonly found in gardens
In general, only six species are still reasonably common in gardens.
Bumblebees are struggling and many species are now rare or threatened. In fact, two species are already extinct and several others may soon follow them if we don't act quickly.
If you are fond of bumblebees and you'd like to help protect them then please join today. Adult membership starts at around £1 per month - a small price to pay for a big buzz!
More than 95% of all sightings are now of these six common species.
Click on the guide below for a larger printable version
Want to know more?
The following guide is a bit more specialised, for those people who want to look more closely.
It will help you to identify the 14 bumblebee species most often seen in gardens or when walking in the countryside. Most can be identified from just the colour pattern. You can get a very close look at bumblebees as they visit flowers (they are quite trusting). .
Need a net?
If you'd like a really close look then take a look at the excellent nets produced by Watkins and Doncaster. They're what we recommend for surveyors - they have a very fine mesh which ensurer that the bees aren't harmed.
The Beewatchers Kit shown here includes everything you need for survey work.
Key questions....
1. Is it a 'true' or a cuckoo bumblebee?
Look at the back legs...
Cuckoo bumblebees stopped collecting pollen so long ago that they no longer have pollen baskets - just very hairy legs!
Female 'true' bumblebees have a conspicuous concave area with a shiny surface fringed by long hairs (or they are carrying a big ball of pollen).
'True' male's legs look similar, but they have what you might describe as an incomplete basket, with a few hairs encroaching onto the surface.
2. Is it a male or a female?
There are several useful clues. The shape of 'pollen baskets' can be useful for true bumblebees (see above).
Males have distinctive long antennae, which are easy to spot with a little practice and some species also have bright yellow faces. They also have a rounded tip to the abdomen (especially when viewed from underneath). They sit lazily on flowers and don't collect pollen. The time of year can also be helpful - males become common in late summer and autumn.
Females have less pronounced antennae, often with a visible 'elbow'. They have a pointed tip to the abdomen (where the sting comes out). They fly busily around, and females of 'true' bumblebees can often be seen collecting pollen.
Male antennae - long and rounded
The underside of a male abdomen - rounded with a 'smiley' opening |
Female antennae - short and elbowed
The underside of a female abdomen - a pointed nobble |
3. What colour is its tail?
White, red, orange or buff - or is the whole bee brown?
- if white, can you see a faint margin of buff hairs between the white and the black?
- The bee below- right has a white tail with a buff margin
4. What other bands can you see?
The bee on the right has two yellow bands. One is at the front of the thorax and the other is part of the way down the abdomen. What colour are they - would you describe them as a dirty/gold yellow or a bright lemon yellow?
You should now be able to identify almost all of the bumblebees you'll ever come across!
The following illustrations are mostly of queen bees, as workers generally have the same colour pattern but are smaller (except the buff-tailed bumblebee). Separate illustrations are shown for species in which the males are different from the females.
Rarer bumblebees that occur in gardens
Three of these species are severely threatened and have declined greatly in abundance (ruderal, brown-banded carder and red-shanked bumblebee). In contrast the tree bumblebee is expanding its range northwards in the UK, having arrived on the south coast from France in 2001. The heath bumblebee is widespread but often overlooked because it is small and superficially similar to the more common garden bumblebee.
Click on the guide below for a larger printable version
Cuckoo bumblebees
In the UK there are 6 species of cuckoo bumblebees (3 illustrated). These were once like other bumblebees, but they have switched to a parasitic existence. The females kill or evict the queen and take over her workers as their own, using them to rear their own offspring. If you live in the south of England, males of the southern cuckoo bumblebee can be among the most common bumblebees in July and August.
Click on the guide below for a larger printable version
Submit your record!
Please help us to map the distributions of our rarer bumblebees. If you think you've found one of the more unusual or localised species then please submit the record. All we need is a digital photo, date and postcode/grid ref. Records can be submitted via the online Beewatch system - it only takes a minute!
Still not found your bee?
There are a further 10 species of bumblebee not illustrated here but which you might see if you visit some of the UK’s wilder places. If you would like to learn how to identify these, or more about the fascinating lives of bumblebees then why not join BBCT today?
