Do bumble bees sleep in flowers? Get the answer and discover more facts about their life cycle, habitat, and how you can help these essential pollinators.
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Bumble bees are keystone pollinators in the ecosystem. They pollinate food crops, trees, and of course, flowers. In my own yard, I realized that the more native plants I planted, the more pollinators visited my garden. Which has been beneficial for my food crops!
I’ve also enjoyed learning about their life cycle. The more we know about a species’ life cycle, the more we can be aware of how our actions might be causing them harm.
Sleeping Bumble Bees
Fact #1
Bees require a temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit or higher to fly easily without using up all of their nectar stores. But they prefer it hot: 80-90 degrees.
On a cool morning I’ve noticed bumble bees asleep inside a squash blossom, underneath a flower, or generally looking lazy. Now I know why!
Fact #2
Bees sleeping outside the nest will sleep under a flowerhead or inside a deep flower like a squash blossom where the temperature can be up to 18 degrees warmer close to the nectar source.
Fact #3
The bee asleep in the flower on a cool morning may be a female forager who got caught outside the nest when the temperature decreased rapidly. Her job is to forage for nectar and pollen and she stores it in (yellow) pollen baskets on her hind legs to take back to the nest.
Fact #4
Or the sleeping bee may be a male. Most males leave the nest just a few days after hatching, and do not return. Their job is to drink nectar all day and chase queens for mating. They spend the day marking objects in their territory with their scent to attract a female queen.
Since they don’t return to the nest, they do not have pollen baskets on their hind legs.
Would you like to learn more about attracting pollinators to your garden?
You’ll find loads of information about pollinators in my award-winning book, The Suburban Micro-Farm.
bumble bee on oregano
Bumble Bee Reproduction
Fact #5
The queen gets to choose whether to fertilize eggs or not. She mates with a male, and stores his sperm in something called the spermatheca over the winter. The following year she can choose whether to fertilize the eggs she lays (which become worker females) or leave them unfertilized (which become males).
Do Bumble Bees Produce Honey?
Fact #6
Bumble bees create honey, but it is not substantial enough for cultivation like honey bees.
Do Bumble Bees Sting?
Fact #7
Bumblebees are generally very docile, but they should still be given space and respect.
According to BumbleBee.org, a bee will stick up a middle leg if it’s annoyed by your presence, which means “back off!”. Otherwise they are docile to the point that you could usually handle one without negative consequence.
Fact #8
Only the females will sting, and they may be more aggressive if you find yourself near their nest. Bumble bees can sting repeatedly and will not die afterwards, since their stingers are not barbed and won’t dislodge from the body.
The honey bee on the other hand can only sting once because of the barbed stinger, and usually dies thereafter.
bumble bees on ‘blue spruce’ sedum
A Bumble Bee Wake-Up Ritual
I was inspecting my ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum flowers one morning because they were full of Argiope aurantia spiders. I like to watch the drama of predator-prey unfold on the flower heads between the spiders, the bees, and the moths.
At that moment, some of the bumble bees that had been sleeping underneath the flower heads woke up. The sun must have just warmed the flowers to the right temperature at that very moment.
When they crawled out from under the flowerhead, they did a little 1-minute dance to warm up and clean themselves from head to tail (so to speak), using their legs, much like a cat uses its paw to clean its head.
It looked like windshield wipers when the bee was cleaning its back with its legs!
I didn’t catch the whole dance on video, unfortunately. However, it’s too good not to share the portion that I caught:
How to Help the Bumble Bees
Fact #9
Like other wildlife, bumble bees have to work harder than ever to find food and shelter due to habitat loss and the overuse of pesticides. Bumble bees that are affected by pesticides are able to fly shorter distances, and therefore have less ability to forage for food.
Fact #10
In the springtime, a queen emerges from solitary hibernation, and must conjure up the energy to find food (flower nectar), build a nest, forage for nectar and pollen, and lay eggs.
She expends an enormous amount of energy to get a nest going, and springtime flowers are really important if she is to survive.
Fact #11
Help provide spring nectar for the bumble bees.
I like to plant heirloom daffodils and other spring ephemerals.
Try planting comfrey, California poppies (here’s the kind I buy), or columbine. I plant flowers in my vegetable garden.
Currant bushes, aronia berry shrubs, spicebush, and hawthorn trees are popular spring bloomers, too.
California poppies offer springtime nectar for bumble bees.
Fact #12
In the fall, bumble bees need plenty of nectar sources so they can store enough food for winter hibernation. The trouble is, most gardens are dying out by the time fall rolls around, and food is scarce.
Fact #13
Plant fall blooming flowers so the bumble bees have enough to forage from.
Fall blooming flowers to grow:
- lavender (I like English lavender)
- salvia (I like scarlet sage)
- wild geranium
- anemone (the pinks are my favorites)
- basil
- chives (Check out my 5 reasons to grow chives)
- cilantro (After they’ve bloomed, save the seeds!)
- parsley
Resource: Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening for Bees, Butterflies, and Other Pollinators
Have you found bumble bees sleeping in flowers? What sources of early and late nectar do you provide for them?
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Christine @ Once Upon a Time in a Bed of Wildflowers says
Stick up their middle leg when annoyed?!? Really??? Yet another reason to love bumblebees! 🙂
I did always wonder why there were always bumblebees dozing in my neighbors’ lavender. Thanks.
~ Christine
Amy says
It’s a fun fact, isn’t it? There might just be something to that middle finger – I mean – leg, other than cultural conditioning! 🙂
Sydney says
I often see bumble bees sleeping in the morning and evening on sunflowers. During the day they happily work their way around each flower head and just wallow in the pollen!
Amy says
Those sound like some fat and happy bees 🙂
Janis Moore says
I grow loofahs. Bumble bees seem to love the big yellow flowers on their vines.
Sheena says
Janis, if you see this, I want to grow loofahs too but can’t get seeds. Any suggestions?
Laura Shelden says
How can I get rid of the wasps around here and still be friendly to the bees? Last year we had so many wasps I had to take in the hummingbird feeders and we couldn’t sit outside. However, I don’t want to use pesticides because I want to encourage the bees. I plant lots of bee and hummingbird friendly flowers. Any tips would be welcome!
Amy says
Hi Laura,
I don’t have any experience with this, so I asked my friends as well as the Tenth Acre Farm community. Some ideas: Remove the feeders altogether, since the sugar water is likely what is attracting them, and instead plant more flowers and habitat that the hummingbirds would enjoy.
Are they wasps with paper nests or ground hornets with nests in the ground? For the ground hornets, you might try sprinkling diatomaceous earth down the hole.
For more ideas from readers, check out this thread on facebook.
linda says
I have tons sleeping on goldenrod in the field this morning and they are also loving pink cosmos and basil.
Dana says
I hosted a Colorado native bumblebee over night in a rose blossom the other day. It was so cute! I got pm amd am photos but wasnt quick enough to video the take off. We are in the 80-90 degree day and 50 degree night time of year so I guess the evening chill happened quickly.
Sara says
I have a Mandevilla in full bloom. I live in Florida. Every single flower has a dead bumblebee. I’ve never seen this happen in the ten years I’ve had this plant. I don’t use pesticides or fertilizer. I went to the extreme of cutting every flower off for fear it’s a death trap! Considering tossing my beautiful plant. Is this an anomaly?
Amy says
Are you sure they weren’t sleeping? They don’t fly if it’s 50 degrees or colder. Otherwise, sounds like they came into contact with a drifting pesticide.
Carol V. Johnson says
Where do bumblebees build their nests? They have been buzzing around my entry today like crazy and I don’t have any spring flowers in bloom yet. Thought maybe they were looking for a good location to start building?
Gaynor says
Hi Amy
Thank you for explaining about the bees taking a snooze. I stood watching becoming more alarmed thinking they were dying! It had been a sunny afternoon then the temperature suddenly dropped quite dramatically.
I didn’t realise only the female are foragers, explaining that the other bees must have been males, I just thought they’d got empty baskets😁
Connie says
Today is Aug. 31, and I noticed dozens of bumblebees going under a floor mat in my detached garage. I had to mess around with one of my stored boxes and apparently one of the bees got into my shirt and stung me on the underside of my upper arm. It hut a little, and swelled just a bit, much less painful than a hornet sting I got a few years ago. I think I was able to let the bee fall out of my shirt without harming her and I see from your article that stinging me will not have killed her. Good!
But, I do keep my car in the garage. Do I need to worry about being stung again? I don’t want to do anything to harm the bees. What will happen to the bees as the temperatures drop here in western NY? So far it’s still warm enough for them and they are gorging on the nectar of my blue salvia. Goldenrod is about to bloom.
Helen Derry says
In early spring I have glory of the snow and grape hyacinth bulbs. The bees are all over these. The next stage is woodland phlox, Virginia bluebells, columbine, Pasque flowers and especially lungwort (loved by new queen bumblebees)- all great for bees.
In the fall – obedient plant, hyssop, blue cardinal flowers, end of Culver’s root are the faves.
Jamie says
Astors! I’m in Wisconsin and the bees love this fall blooming flower along with the Goldenrod. So great to see several bee varieties buzzing around the blooms.
Linda Edgerton says
Hi, I’m hoping you can shed some light on something that I observed between bumblebees and hornets. I live in Maine and chose to not mow my backyard this year. It was facinating to watch the multiple pollinators visiting the wildflowers. I also left out some old honeycomb. Multiple insects took advantage. I watched bumblebees warn hornets as you described. However, when it got cooler the bumblebees slowed down. The hornets climbed on and around them but did not harm them. It actually looked like they were taking whatever honey the bees had stored on them. Have you ever observed that before? I used to keep honeybees, but lost them to bald-faced hornets during a heat wave. Looking forward to your response.
Gail says
We have a passion flower plant next to our house and there are always bees. Esp bumblebees and butterflies around it all the time during spring summer and the begining of fall. The flowers almost look fake because how pretty they are and it has little orange balls of fruit growing. That plant is a vine that wraps on everything.
Kristie Paylor says
I watched bees sleeping tonight, but thought they’d gotten cold too fast. If I put my warm hand next to them, they’ll crawl on and I gently breathe warm breath on them. After a few minutes, they do the warm up cleaning dance described and fly off. If I blow a bit too far, I got the leg in the air! On hot summer days/evenings, I’ve thought they may be dehydrated, so I’ll get sugar water and give them drops on my hand. About half will start drinking with their probiscus(sp?), get revived, do the wake up dance & fly off. Early spring flowers they love: lungwort, bluebells, native geraniums, azaleas, forget me nots. In fall, butterfly bush, crocosmia, asters, blue Penstemon, dandelions, clover, butter cups, Borage, cosmos. Thank you, I learned so much. I do notice they seem to overnight and winter in my raised Glendon septic mounds, sand-based and covered with grass. I’ll see them fly around the bases, like they’re looking or eventing for their own hole, then fly into a spot and disappear behind the grass.