Glory bee! Buzz pollination in middle C!

This bumblebee is most famous for its ability to buzz pollinate: certain plants such as Wild Poppy have ‘poricidal anthers’ which need a specific frequency of vibration for their pollen to shake out through their pores. This frequency just happens to be middle C, the frequency buff-tailed bumblebee bodies have evolved to vibrate at. When they do so, the result is a clearly visible puff of pollen!

Not all their feeding expresses such mutualistic neighborly relations however. Their tongues are too short to reach the nectar of certain tube-like flowers, so they bite a hole in the bottom of the flowers and rob the nectar without providing the usual pollination service.

In other news, they are one of the first bumblebees to emerge, often as early as January, giving them the edge on finding good nesting sites, such as safely underground in old vole holes.