Garden Bumblebee (Bombus hortorum)

A relatively large bumblebee that can be found in a wide variety of habitats including woodlands, gardens and scrubland. It has the longest tongue of all the bumblebees, so it feeds from long, tubular flowers such as bush vetch, red clover foxglove and honeysuckle. Garden bumblebees nest underground, often using the old nests of small mammals.

They have a scruffy appearance, with a long tongue and face. They have yellow bands at the collar, rear of the thorax and at the first segment of the abdomen. They have slimmer body than other bees and the tip of their tail is white. 

• The fresher the samples are, the better they will be for analysis. Please provide as much sample as possible. Specimens may be frozen or preserved in absolute ethanol to slow the degradation of DNA.
• Sample types include: whole dead specimens, cocoons, pupa, or meconium (the waste product of the larvae).
• Samples can be taken using a biological sampling kit or using your own containers/resources.
• Species with similar banding patterns include Bombus jonellus and Bombus ruderatus. Our biological analysis can aid with species differentiation.