Photo of the issue | Piotr Bębas, Marcin M. Chrzanowski | EDUKACJA BIOLOGICZNA I ŚRODOWISKOWA 1/2014
110
IN SHOR
T
SCIENCE
SCHOOL
EDUKACJA BIOLOGICZNA I ŚRODOWISKOWA | ebis.ibe.edu.pl | ebis@ibe.edu.pl | © for the article by the Authors 2014 © for the edition by Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych 2014
Photo of the issue
Bumble bee on Echinacea purpurea
Author of the photographies:
Piotr Bębas, PhD, D.Sc., Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw
Text authors:
Piotr Bębas, PhD, D.Sc., Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw; Marcin M. Chrzanowski, PhD, Science Section, Educational Research
Institute
Photographies were captured in the garden near house in Poland, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in the city of Starachowice (coordinates: 51°03’N 21°04’E).
date of caption: 31st of July 2013
The photographies were captured with the iPhone4S mobile phone. Scientific classification Domain: Eukaryote Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hymenoptera Family: Apidae Subfamily: Apinae Tribe: Bombini Genus: Bombus
Species: Bombus terrestris
There are about 300 known species of bumble bees living on Earth. In Poland occurrence of 30 to 40 spe-cies of bumble bees has been stated dependently on the source of information. Almost all species of bumble bees in Poland are under the protection of law (status
of endangered and protected species) except Bombus
terrestris as well as Bombus lapidarius. This group of
animas has a very strong significance in the process of the flower-plants pollination, especially those whose flowers have long tube structure, or composed of long tubular disc florets. There are some plant species exclu-sively or almost excluexclu-sively pollinated by bumble bees, for example: Aconitum firmum, Digitalis purpurea (the common foxglove), or Antirrhinum majus (the common snapdragon).
Similarly to honey bees (Apis mellifera) bumble bees are social insects and form colonies. Those colonies
are much less numerous comparing to those formed by bees. They consist of a single queen and up to 500 worker females. Fertilized females (queens) of the
Bom-bus terrestris pass the winter hibernating in so called
imaginal diapause state. In the spring the diapause state terminates and females using grass, dried up leaves or moss start to build the nests, usually in hollows, under stones or in rodents’ burrows. Inside the nest queen pre-pare two kind of cells made of wax. In one of them they collect nectar, and the second one is filled up with pol-len. They lay eggs to the second type of cells – those with pollen. This act is repeated many times. All the cells are
Photo of the issue | Piotr Bębas, Marcin M. Chrzanowski | EDUKACJA BIOLOGICZNA I ŚRODOWISKOWA 1/2014
111
IN SHOR
T
SCIENCE
SCHOOL
EDUKACJA BIOLOGICZNA I ŚRODOWISKOWA | ebis.ibe.edu.pl | ebis@ibe.edu.pl | © for the article by the Authors 2014 © for the edition by Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych 2014
than successively connected by queen in the form of one “kindergarten”. At night, when temperature drops down, queen warms eggs and hatching larvae. During the time when larvae grow up queen supplies them with new rations of pollen. Fully developed larvae undergo metamorphosis and just after eclosion (moult to the im-aginal stage) adult bumble bees chew their way out of the silk cocoon and after 2 or 3 days of eating the nectar collected by their queen, they go out of the nest and be-came grown-up foraging workers. Empty cocoons are being recycled and used as pollen capsules for the next larvae generation. Adult bumble bees take the responsi-bilities from queen and take care of the nest and queen starts to laying legs only
From part of eggs laid by queen males and new queens also develop. After copulation they will dia-pause and the new life cycle will start again. Interest-ingly, males of bumble bees just after going out of the nest never go back to it and live on their own. Just like females, males are also pollinators of a large variety of plants what differentiates bumble bees from honey bees.
