Many people overlook a major drama that is currently unfolding in gardens all over the United States. Those bumblebees that have been coming to your flowers during late summer are not as calm as they appear. They are actually working to beat winter's clock to ensure their survival.
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Check PriceThe Queen's Desperate Mission
The bumblebee gathering nectar from your aster, is a future queen, and if she is quite literally eating for her life. She is not just another worker; honeybee active hives all year, but bumblebee colonies face total destruction every autumn.
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Only new queens see spring, so her chances of success rest solely on successfully building fat reserves for 6-8 months of hibernation.
These future queens have to increase their body weight by 100% before the first hard frost hits. Each flower visit from September to October can determine whether or not they’ll start a colony in spring or remain dormant through the winter. The stakes couldn't be higher.
Die Strategie bezüglich des unterirdischen Bunkers
When summer sisters and the old queen pass away, newly mated queens begin searching for their first winter homes. However, they are not looking for a home like yours with cozy hollow logs or garden sheds. These survival experts require loose soil to construct their winter homes, and they dig on average 2–4 inches deep. Their winter home must be perfect for drainage and insulation.
Every queen is like a time capsule containing the genetic memory of the entire colony. They always know the best spots for nectar and are able to rebuild a colony from scratch. One queen that survives the winter can produce between 50 to 400 worker bees the following summer.
The Critical Fuel Window
Fall cleanup can mean the difference between life and death for the insects in your garden, but most gardeners don’t know this. Most gardeners will deadhead the spent chrysanthemums and cut down bee balm. However, when they do this, they are removing the winter survival food source for the queens. The surviving winter food supplies may not look pretty, but they are functional.
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A study found that bumblebees have a 60% drop in their survival rates when food sources during the late summer/fall season are eliminated. Local bee populations will thrive next spring if local gardeners leave some of the late summer/fall bloomers in their gardens.
The Spring Resurrection
As winter turns to spring, some waking queens still feel the cold, deep within their bones. Lonely and exhausted, they make the difficult journey toward their first nesting site. Along the way, they must find a sufficient number of flowering plants and then establish a nesting site. She will also need to begin egg production. All of this is alongside foraging that will ensure her survival. It's a survival funnel that crushes 80% of queens before they successfully found new colonies.
The first flowers of spring have important jobs that go beyond looking pretty. These flowers provide food for the queen bees that have just come out of hibernation. In the first week after she awakens from her winter hibernation, she needs to find food. After that, she has to build a nest.
Your Garden's Hidden Power
The late flowers and seed heads that remain in your garden during winter will support emerging queens and the entire cycle of the ecosystem, as they provide food in early spring when queens first emerge.
Asters, goldenrod, and joe-pye weed are late bloomers that are native to the area. They are especially important because they have co-evolved with native bumblebees for thousands of years and provide nutrition that is specific to the needs of bumblebee queens for winter survival. This is in contrast to many non-native garden flowers that only provide empty calories.
The Ripple Effect
Bumblebee survival helps your entire garden ecosystem. Buzz pollination is important for bumblebees to get the pollen of tomatoes, blueberries, and eggplants. Also, bumblebees can cause your vegetable yields to drop 50% or more.
Each queen bee that makes it through the winter helps start a colony that offers pollination services worth hundreds to your garden. They also forage at colder temperatures than other bees, start foraging earlier in the day, and continue to forage later into the fall season. So, they become a longer season workforce for your garden.
Becoming a Queen Maker
Bumblebee habitats are simple to create! Refrain from overly cleaning areas in fall so certain soils remain undisturbed for burrowing queens. Also, plant bloomers that are native and provide food resources until October.
Primarily, think about the thoughts of a queen heading into winter. A more chaotic garden is better than a clean garden bed full of mulch. The next spring’s founding royalty might be at the slightly chaotic garden corner that has fallen leaves and soil that’s protected.
Every time we plant something in our fall garden, we either support bumblebees or make things worse for them! Once you find out about how bumblebees' nests are built underground and how they survive the winter, it transforms you from a regular gardener to an important ally to the ecosystem. The big bumblebee that you will see soon visiting your late-season flowers will become a queen bumblebee and will begin a very important mission!
