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Sticker of Forest bumble bee
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Forest bumble bee

Bombus sylvicola

The forest bumble bee is a fluffy bumblebee from Canada, Alaska and the western United States. It loves cold places, high in the mountains and in the far north, where it buzzes over grassy mountain meadows.

Lives in
Canada, Alaska and the western United States, in mountain meadows
Top speed
about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
Flying, estimate
What does it eat?
It drinks nectar and collects pollen from fireweed, lupines, mountain heather and many other wildflowers.
For real!Photo of Forest bumble bee
Picture by Matt Muir. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It usually builds its nest underground, but sometimes right on the surface.

2

Some forest bumble bees have long tongues and some have short ones.

3

As the climate warms, flowers with deep tubes are getting rarer, so more of these bees now have short tongues.

4

It can look almost exactly like another bee, the black-tailed bumblebee.

5

In California it only lives high up in the mountains.

you asked

Most asked questions about Forest bumble bee

?Where does the forest bumble bee live?

In Canada, Alaska and the western United States, in cold mountain meadows.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Bombus sylvicola
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Forest bumblebee

Where the facts come from

  1. Bombus sylvicola (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Matt Muir. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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