Bumblebee

 Bumblebee

A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus Bombus, part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related genera (e.g., Calyptapis) are known from fossils. They are found primarily in higher altitudes or latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, although they are also found in South America, where a few lowland tropical species have been identified. European bumblebees have also been introduced to New Zealand and Tasmania. Female bumblebees can sting repeatedly, but generally ignore humans and other animals

 

They are generally very docile. They do not form swarms like other communal bees and they only sting when truly provoked.

 

Bumblebees are round and fuzzy; honeybees are smaller and thinner – it would be easy, in fact, to mistake them for wasps. ... Bumblebees are social, too, but not to the same extent. Where honeybees build hives, bumblebees live in nests with up to a few hundred fellow bees.

 

A sting occurs when a female bee or wasp lands on your skin and uses her ovipositor against you. ... The same is true for wasps. Most bees and wasps can sting you, pull out the stinger, and fly off before you can yell "Ouch!" So solitary bees, bumblebees, and wasps do not die when they sting you.

 

A honeybee's stinger is made of two barbed lancets. When the bee stings, it can't pull the stinger back out.

 

Although it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the stinger is in fact barbed so that it lodges in the victim's skin, tearing loose from the bee's abdomen and leading to its death in minutes, this only happens if the skin of the victim is sufficiently thick, such as a mammal's. Honey bees are the only hymenoptera with a strongly barbed sting, though yellow jackets and some other wasps have small barbs