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BumblebeeID
Find British species by colour pattern

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THE KEY

The colour pattern of the body hair can be used to identify British bumblebee species. This easy to use three-step key is usually sufficient to identify the common species and some of the rarer species.

Please send comments and suggestions to
Paul Williams
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Aim - what this colour key can and can't do
How to use this colour key
Further information on each species
Acknowledgements

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Aim - what this colour key can and can't do

Can - This is a simple three-step key to British bumblebees (or 'bumble bees', see the list of species). It is intended for people with no specialist knowledge of bumblebees but who do have a bee to compare with the pictures. Make sure that your specimen is a bumblebee by excluding any flies, moths, or beetles that mimic bumblebees. Unlike these other insects, bumblebees (see the illustration above) have: (1) clear or slightly cloudy membranous wings without scales; (2) two pairs of wings that are usually hooked together (you can check this by stroking the wing with a pencil tip to see if they will unhook); and (3) long stout antennae with an 'elbow' after the first long segment near their base.

 

Can't - While this key usually works for the common species, not all of the local and rare species can be distinguished using colour alone (see examples). Notes on these rarer species are included, but to be sure of identifying them correctly, you will need to use one of the more technical keys that may require using a microscope (e.g. Prys-Jones & Corbet, 1987, 1991; Benton, 2006).

 

Some bees may not be identifiable using this key for other reasons. Bees that are wet or dirty, or have had their hair rubbed off, will not be identifiable with this key. Old bees that have spent a long time in the sun may fade (e.g. from red to yellow, or from yellow to nearly white) and so will not match the patterns of the fresh specimens shown here. Colour patterns are also very variable, so they may not match exactly the examples (most other keys show less of the variation). Occasionally, bees are found that have very odd colour patterns, which are not shown here. They may either be mutants (e.g. with one or more colours completely missing), or may have been damaged during development (e.g. chilling often causes greying or additional pale bands to be added to the pattern).

 

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How to use this colour key

You will need to compare a bee (or a photo of a bee) with the colour patterns in the key. Be careful - queen and worker bumblebees can sting! A hand lens may help to see the details, but it is not essential.

 

The colours shown are the colours of the hair, not of the body surface, which is black or brown. The colours of the hair are described as being black or pale, so 'pale' includes white, grey, yellow, orange, red, and brown. In the colour-pattern diagrams, the colour pattern is simplified by artificially dividing the body up into rectangular areas and showing just the predominant colour for each.

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An example:

  1. At step 1, you need to choose one of three colour groups for the bee's tail colour (orange-red, yellow-white, or black). The tail colour is taken to be the palest colour on the last few segments of the abdomen.

    - For this bee, the pale colour of the tail is yellowish white ('buff').

  2. At step 2, you need to choose which banding pattern from the diagrams most closely matches your bee. The banding pattern refers to the number of pale bands crossing (or part-way crossing) the body, not counting the tail or the head, and counting bands on the thorax and abdomen as separate bands.

    - For this bee, there is one yellow band at the front of the thorax and another on the second segment of the abdomen after the waist, so it has two yellow bands.

  3. At step 3, you need to compare the details of the colour pattern with the range of colour patterns shown. To help with this, the species are grouped by whether they are widespread and common, or whether they are local or rare or extinct. Most bees found will belong to the widespread common group.

    - For this bee, among the widespread species, the colour pattern matches most closely the queen of B. terrestris, with a yellowish white tail and two golden yellow bands.

  4. To find out more, you can follow the links to notes on the species in Britain, and onwards to notes on their taxonomy and nomenclature.

    - For B. terrestris, see the British notes, taxonomic notes (including notes on introductions), and photos of the male genitalia (for checking identification of males).

 

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Further information on each species

The species names at step 3 of the guide are linked to pages showing the major colour variation within each species (e.g. B. pascuorum). The species in these pages are arranged by whether they are widespread, southern local, northwestern local, or rare / extinct, with a separate page for the cuckoo species (subgenus Psithyrus). British and worldwide distribution maps and outline notes on habitats and behaviour are included.

 

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to all of those who have kindly contributed suggestions on this guide, including Peter Barnard, Ted Benton, Andrew Bourke, Sally Corbet, Liz Day, Sam Droege, Mike Edwards, George Else, Dave Goulson, Murdo Macdonald, Juliet Osborne, Bridget Peacock, Andrew Polaszek, Oliver Prys-Jones, and Catrin Westphal.

 

Please send comments and suggestions to Paul Williams.

 

 

alphabetic British list | distribution of British bumblebees | colour patterns | colour diagrams

 

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