Red-tailed Bumblebee at Belsay Hall, Northumberland, England

From Wikipedia

Bombus lapidarius is a species of bumblebee in the subgenus Melanobombus. Commonly known as the red-tailed bumblebee, B. lapidarius can be found throughout much of Central Europe. Known for its distinctive black and red body, this social bee is important in pollination.

The red-tailed bumblebee is a part of the order Hymenoptera, family Apidae, and the genus Bombus, which includes many species including Bombus terrestris, Bombus lucorum, and Bombus hypnorum.

The red-tailed bumblebee is typically distinguished by its black body with red markings around the abdomen. Worker females and the queen look similar, though the queen is much larger than the worker females. Males typically have the red and black coloration with a yellow band around the abdomen and yellow markings on the face. Further, B. lapidarius tend to have a medium-sized proboscis, which is significant in that it allows the species to be a good pollinator. These bees do not typically form extensive or complex colonies. Nests usually only contain a few hundred bees at most, with an average colony consisting of about 100 to 200 worker bees.

Image details
Date: 29 May 2023
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Tamron 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.0-5.6
Focal Length: 300mm
Aperture: ƒ/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1,000s
ISO: 320
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International