Bumblebees are social insects that establish colonies. They do have nests, but these homes are fundamentally distinct from the large, perennial, and highly organized hives associated with honeybees. The bumblebee nest is a temporary home, built by a single queen to house a colony that will only last for a single season. This temporary nature dictates a different approach to architecture, location, and population size.
Where Bumblebee Nests Are Located
The queen bumblebee does not construct a nest cavity from scratch but instead seeks out a pre-existing sheltered space that offers protection and insulation. This preference for existing cavities is a major difference from honeybees, which build their own vertical wax comb within a chosen location.
Many species commonly select sites near or on the ground, utilizing abandoned rodent burrows or dense, matted grass tussocks for their shelter. Other opportunistic locations include compost piles, under sheds, inside wall cavities, or even in old bird boxes. The chosen site must be dry and well-insulated to help the queen maintain the high internal temperature necessary for brood development. The queen may line the cavity with soft materials like moss, dried grass, or animal fur found in the location to create a cozy, spherical chamber for the new colony.
The Unique Interior Structure
The architecture inside a bumblebee nest is notably different from the highly geometric, hexagonal comb of a honeybee hive. The queen and later the workers secrete wax from their abdominal glands to create various small structures within the nest.
One of the first things the founding queen builds is a nectar pot, which is a small, cup-shaped wax vessel used to store a short-term reserve of nectar. These wax pots are irregular in shape and size, serving as temporary storage since the colony does not need to stockpile food for an entire winter. Brood are housed in small, irregular wax cells, which are often grouped together in a cluster on a mass of pollen. Unlike honeybee cells, which are cleaned and reused, bumblebee cells are sometimes discarded or used as additional storage after the adult emerges.
Colony Size and Short Lifespan
The bumblebee colony’s lifespan is governed by its annual lifecycle, which sharply contrasts with the perennial nature of honeybee colonies. Every new nest is founded by a single queen who emerges from hibernation in the spring. She must perform all foraging, building, and incubation duties alone. Only after the first generation of worker daughters emerges does the queen retire to focus solely on laying eggs.
A mature bumblebee colony is substantially smaller than a honeybee hive, typically peaking at a population of 50 to 400 individuals in most common species. In contrast, a honeybee colony can easily number in the tens of thousands. The entire colony is temporary, surviving only through the summer and into early autumn. As the season ends, the original queen, the workers, and the male drones die off. Only the newly produced, mated queens leave the nest to find a suitable location to hibernate, ensuring the cycle can begin again the following spring.