Brown-belted bumblebees

Harlem, New York

I am on the 19th floor in Harlem, and the midday air is usually filled with the wailing of ambulance sirens in the streets below, and a more persistent and loud buzz closer by.  Little black and brown blobs would whizz by my startled nose, and land on the balcony railings and take off once again before I could get a good glimpse of them.

Today morning, me and my iPhone were quick on the draw, and I caught this beauty just as it was about to take off.

                                                       Brown-belted Bumble Bee

 (Bombus griseocollis)

I did not think they would be seen so high up in the atmosphere.  These brown-belted bumblebees are important flower and fruit pollinators for the region, and they are probably the reason that those hibiscuses are flowering merrily and happily!

Sharp-Eatman nature photography has an ID guide for the wild bees of New York

Identification Information:  These bees can be best identified by their trim "crew cut" fur and by the belt of brown hair that usually appears near the front end (on the second segment) of their black abdomens, just behind a narrow yellow band.  Brown-belted bumble bees have  black legs and dark transparent wings.  Their heads are black, sometimes with yellow markings, and they have large black eyes.  The bees' yellow thoraxes (mid-sections) may or may not have a black spot at the center.  Queen bees may lack the brown belt.  Queens are substantially larger than other members of this species but have the same distinctive large eyes and  trim fur.

Unlike other bumble bees, brown-belted bumble bees have short tongues.  They thus are unable to access nectar and pollen from deep-throated flowers.  They prefer blossoms that have flat landing platforms containing multiple florets, such as milkweed, black-eyed Susans and thistles.   Instead of expending energy by flying from one flower to the next, brown-belted bumble bees can walk from floret to floret, efficiently gathering a small amount of nectar from each. The brown-belted bumble bees shown here were gathering nectar in this fashion from coneflowers, common milkweed and swamp milkweed.  These bumble bees also feed on goldenrod, toadflax and thistles along park trails and in Stone Barns' gardens.  They first appear in our area in mid-March and remain throughout the summer.

The Hibiscus suits their short tongues!