California bumble bee
Bombus californicus
The California bumble bee is a black bumble bee with a yellow band at the front of its back and another yellow band near the end of its tail. It lives in the western half of North America. Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of them.
Lives in
Western North America and Central America, in meadows and gardens
What does it eat?
Like all bumble bees, it drinks nectar and collects pollen from flowers.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
California bumble bee about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It is listed as Vulnerable, which means it is in danger of disappearing.
2
In southern California it is found less and less often.
3
It can look exactly like its sister species, so sometimes only a DNA test can tell them apart.
4
Scientists collected DNA from bumble bees across California to check how many are left.
you asked
Most asked questions about California bumble bee
?Is the California bumble bee endangered?
It is listed as Vulnerable, and its numbers are dropping fast in parts of California.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Bombus californicus
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Bombus californicus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by (c) Madeleine Claire, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 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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