Fire-tailed Bumble Bee (Bombus ardens) — identification, habitat & look-alikes | Moeyo

The Fire-tailed Bumble Bee is a spring-active bee of Japan and Korea. Females have a mostly dark body with an orange tail, while males carry much more yellow hair.

Appearance

Appearance: Queens are about 0.6–0.9 in (16–22 mm), and workers are about 0.3–0.6 in (8–16 mm). Females are mostly black with a yellow-orange tail; males have much more yellow hair across the body.

Where it lives

Typical habitats: Woodland edges in Japan
Meadows and towns in Japan
Range: It is documented in Japan and Korea.

Behavior

Diet: Adults collect nectar and pollen from flowers in their East Asian range.
Activity: On Japan’s main islands, queens are active mainly from March through June, workers from April through August, and males from May through July; timing varies by region.
Social life: A queen starts a colony, and workers later forage from the nest.
Overwintering: New queens survive the winter and start colonies the following spring.

Life cycle

Nest: In Japan, nests have been documented in ground spaces and gaps in buildings.

Name and classification

About the name: Japanese populations include the Bombus ardens ardens and Bombus ardens sakagamii.
Varieties and forms: The Tsushima population has also been given the subspecies name Bombus ardens tsushimanus.

Conservation

IUCN Red List: NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed

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Fire-tailed Bumble Bee (Bombus ardens) — identification, habitat & look-alikes | Moeyo