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Sticker of Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee
Bug card No. 0293 of 4,939

Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee

Bombus barbutellus

Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee is a fluffy black bumblebee with a yellow collar and a whitish tail. It has a sneaky trick. It never builds a home of its own, but moves into the nest of another bumblebee.

Lives in
Most of Europe and across Russia, in meadows, fields and gardens
Length
1.5 to 1.8 cm (0.59 to 0.71 in)
females are a little bigger than males
Top speed
about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
Flying, estimate
What does it eat?
It drinks nectar from flowers. Thistles are a favourite, and it also visits deadnettle, vetch, bramble, lavender and honeysuckle.
For real!Photo of Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee
Picture by gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee about 1.8 cm long (0.71 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 3 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 24 secondsmoves 250 times its own body length every second

How big is Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It is called a cuckoo bee because, like a cuckoo bird, it lets others raise its babies.

2

It takes over a nest of a garden bumblebee or a similar kind. The worker bees there then end up raising its young.

3

In Britain it lives mostly in southern England, East Anglia and western Wales.

4

Its fur is short, and old queens that have slept through the winter can look a bit worn and bald.

5

It lives from the middle of Scandinavia down to southern Spain, and from Britain all the way to the far east of Russia.

you asked

Most asked questions about Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee

?Why is it called a cuckoo bumble bee?

Because it does not build its own nest. It moves into another bumblebee's nest and lets those bees raise its young, like a cuckoo bird does.

?How big is Barbut's cuckoo bumble bee?

About 1.5 to 1.8 centimetres long. The females are a little bigger than the males.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Bombus barbutellus
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia
Also known as
Barbut's cuckoo-bee

Where the facts come from

  1. Bombus barbutellus (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 gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K. CC BY 2.0, 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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More from the same group: Bees and bumblebees

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