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Sticker of Great Basin bumble bee
Bug card No. 2009 of 4,939

Great Basin bumble bee

Bombus centralis
Eats: Nectar and pollenBees and bumblebeesGardens and meadows6 legs

The Great Basin bumble bee is a small, fluffy bumblebee with long hair. It is yellow at the front, orange-red in the middle and black at the tail. It has a long face and a long tongue for reaching deep into flowers.

Lives in
Western Canada and the western United States, on prairies and in river valleys
Length
0.9 to 1.2 cm (0.37 to 0.49 in)
workers
Top speed
about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Can sting

Watch out! Read about its close cousin on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
It drinks nectar and collects pollen from flowers such as wild onions, thistles, mints and penstemons.
For real!Photo of Great Basin bumble bee
Picture by Sheffield CS, Oram R, Heron JM (2020) Bombus (Pyrobombus) johanseni Sladen, 1919, a valid North American bumble bee species, with a new synonymy and comparisons. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Great Basin bumble bee about 1.2 cm long (0.49 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 29 secondsmoves 290 times its own body length every second

How big is Great Basin bumble bee compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The queen is the biggest bee in the nest, up to 16 millimetres long.

2

In late May the queen wakes up from her winter sleep and starts a nest, often in an old empty mouse hole.

3

About a month later, the first worker bees come out to help her.

4

In September the nest ends and all the bees die except the new queens, who sleep through the winter.

5

It has a black band across the middle of its yellow back.

you asked

Most asked questions about Great Basin bumble bee

?Where does the Great Basin bumble bee nest?

Often in old empty nests of mice and other small animals in the ground.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Bombus centralis
Named by
Cresson, 1864
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Apidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Central bumblebee

Where the facts come from

  1. Bombus centralis (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 Sheffield CS, Oram R, Heron JM (2020) Bombus (Pyrobombus) johanseni Sladen, 1919, a valid North American bumble bee species, with a new synonymy and comparisons. 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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