''Bombus flavifrons'', the yellow-fronted bumble bee or yellowhead bumblebee, is a species of

bumblebee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related gene ...

. It is native to North America, where it is distributed across much of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...

, and the western contiguous United States.Hatfield, R., et al. (2015)
"''Bombus flavifrons''"
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 5 March 2016.

Description

This is a robust bumblebee; the

queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

has a body length between and a wingspan of , the male is in length with a wingspan of , and the workers are in length and in wingspan. The yellow-fronted bumble bee has a dense, untidy fur. The head is yellow with black hairs intermixed on the posterior part, the

thorax The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the ...

has a mixed black and yellow colouration, often (always with the queen) with a black, central field. The first two

terga A ''tergum'' (Latin for "the back"; plural ''terga'', associated adjective tergal) is the dorsal ('upper') portion of an arthropod segment other than the head. The anterior edge is called the 'base' and posterior edge is called the 'apex' or 'mar ...

(abdominal segments) are yellow, on the females often with a black, central field on terga 1 to 2. Terga 3 and 4 are red, and the tail black, sometimes with yellow fields. ;Subspecies Subspecies include:Bumblebee.org
. accessed 3.30.2013 *''B. f. dimidiatus'' — with the red fur more or less entirely replaced with black *''B. f. flavifrons''

Ecology

The queen emerges from her hibernation at the end of March and often builds a nest in a disused mouse nest. The first workers appear about a month later. The nest declines at the end of August, and all the inhabitants die, except for the new queens, which hibernate in the earth. The bumblebee feeds on several flowering plants, most commonly those in

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae ...

, Fabaceae,

Saxifragaceae Saxifragaceae is a family of herbaceous perennial flowering plants, within the core eudicot order Saxifragales. The taxonomy of the family has been greatly revised and the scope much reduced in the era of molecular phylogenetic analysis. The ...

, and

Lamiaceae The Lamiaceae ( ) or Labiatae are a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint, deadnettle or sage family. Many of the plants are aromatic in all parts and include widely used culinary herbs like basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savo ...

. This species is host to the parasitic indiscriminate cuckoo bumblebee (''

Bombus insularis ''Bombus insularis'' is a species of bumblebee in the subgenus ''Psithyrus'', the cuckoo bumblebees. It is native to northern and western North America, where it occurs throughout Canada, Alaska, the northern United States, and some western stat ...

''). This bee occurs at high altitude and latitude, living in habitat such as

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mo ...

taiga Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces ...

, and mountain forests and meadows.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4310121 Bumblebees Hymenoptera of North America Insects described in 1863