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Winter wonderland

In the last edition of Gardening Spotlight we put a call out for photos to brighten up
our dark wintery days and we are were delighted to see so many bright and colourful
photos of your bee-friendly gardens and bumblebees enjoying them. Thank you to
everyone who sent in their photos for all of us to enjoy and reminisce about the buzz
of bumbles past (see page 6).

It’s that time of year again, when the majority of bumblebee queens are
underground, sitting out the winter until spring when the hard work begins. Research
from Queen Mary University of London earlier this year (see link below) showed that
rest is an essential part of life for newly emerged bumblebee queens. Rather than
focusing on refuelling, in the first few days after emergence, queens spent most of
their time resting in between short dispersal flights. This is a good excuse not to be
too tidy in the garden this winter and, in particular, to allow a few fallen leaves to
remain on the ground into spring. Old leaves act as snooze-pods for resting queens,
providing them with cover from would-be predators like birds.
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40355-6

Left: Buff-tailed bumblebee
(Bombus terrestris) queen emerging
by Michelle Ernoult; Above:
Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus
terrestris) queen by Dave Clark
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