Field cuckoo bumble bee
Bombus campestris
The field cuckoo bumble bee is a sneaky bumblebee. Like a cuckoo bird, it lets other bumblebees raise its babies. The queen moves into the nest of a carder bee, and the workers there feed her young.
Lives in
Most of Europe, from the British Isles to far eastern Russia
Length
1.5 to 1.8 cm (0.59 to 0.71 in)
What does it eat?
The adults drink from flowers like thistles, dandelions, red clover, brambles and knapweed. Its larvae are fed by the workers of the host nest.
How big is it?
How long is it?
🍚as long as 3 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 24 seconds⚡moves 250 times its own body length every second
How big is Field cuckoo bumble bee compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Field cuckoo 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 mostly sneaks into the nests of common carder bees.
2
It has no workers of its own, because the host bees do all the work.
3
Some are pale with yellow bands, and some are almost all black.
4
The queen's fur is quite thin on her back.
you asked
Most asked questions about Field cuckoo bumble bee
?What is a cuckoo bumble bee?
A bumblebee that lays its eggs in another bumblebee's nest, so the other bees raise its babies.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Bombus campestris
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Bombus campestris (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) Maria, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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