Bumble bees

Hey Listener, 

In this month's episode, we’re talking all about one of our favorite pollinators Bumble Bees.  We play some bee true false, learn about how they differ from other native bees. 

Bumble bee Resources:  

• Bees of Maryland: A field guide from the North American Native Bee Collaborative.
• Bumble Bees of Eastern United States (pdf) from USDA, Forest Service, and Pollinator Partnership
• Xerces Society
• Bumble bee flower finder

We also have our : 

• Native Plant of the Month:  Wild  Bergamont
• Bug of the Month: Lemon Cuckoo Bumble Bee
•  Monthly Garden Tips

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 The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Principal Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture; Rachel Rhodes- Senior Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County); and Emily Zobel- Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

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Transcript

Garden Thyme Podcast Transcript

 S7:E04 Bumblebees (June 2026)

 Note: The Garden Thyme Podcast is produced for the ear and is designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.  

:Up Beat Song:

Emily

Hello, listener! Welcome to the University of Maryland Extension Presents the Garden Time podcast, where we talk about getting down and dirty in your garden. We're your hosts. I'm Emily.

Rachel

I'm Rachel.

Mikaela

And I'm Mikaela.

Emily

In this month's episode, we're all abuzz talking about one of our favorite bees, Bumblebees.

Mikaela

Bumblebees.

Emily

So today we're talking about bumblebees, the adorable chunky flying bees in the garden world. They might look clumsy, but they are a powerhouse when it comes to pollination.

Mikaela

They are sweet.

Rachel

There's nothing better than seeing them try to fit their body into a flower.

Mikaela

Like their butts don't fit.

Emily

I personally, being a big butt person, appreciate it. I find camaraderie amongst the bumblebees. They're a little chunky.

Mikaela

You sympathize.

Emily

They're super fluffy. I do. Them trying to wiggle into a flower is like me trying to fit into my jeans some days.

Mikaela

Oh, stop.

Emily

So bumblebees are part of the genus Bombus. They are large, fuzzy, and highly social insects. They are a keystone pollinator. They specialize in what we call buzz pollination, in which they vibrate their wing muscles and cause the flower pollen to shake loose the flower.

Mikaela

Okay.

Emily

They are keystone pollinator and they specialize in what we call buzz pollination, which is a specialized technique that is used to extract pollen from particularly tight or tubular flowers. Um, so again, our big chunky bumblebees trying to get into something a little too tight for them. Um, and basically through the process of vibrating their wing muscles, this allows the pollen to shake loose from the flower and then allows the bee to get access to it. So unlike honeybees, which they're commonly compared to, bumblebees have annual colony cycles. with binateral new queens that overwinter. All bumblebees belong to the genus Bombaeus, which is within the family of Apidae. Similar species, or other species that are also found within Apidae, include things like the honeybee, which they commonly get compared to, as well as things like carpenter bees, which they are similar in size to, but also things like cuckoo bees, digger bees, and orchid bees. Worldwide, we have about 275 species of bumblebees, with most of them commonly being found in the northern hemisphere— in the nor— uh— With most of them being found in the northern hemisphere, particularly in North America and across Eurasia. They do tend to thrive in more temperate and colder climates.

Emily

But we will find some native species that live in higher altitude areas in South America and throughout the tropics. So within North America, we're looking at about 50, 50 to 51 species that are found, and we have 14 species of bumblebees that are typically found in Maryland. They thrive in diverse habitats, which include things like farmlands, urban gardens, roadsides, shrubland, and open woodland lots where— with an abundance of flowers available. So basically anywhere where there's an abundance of flowers available. They are important pollinators for our wildflower plants and our crops. Since they're general foragers, they don't necessarily depend on one specific type of plant— of flower or plant like a lot of our other specialized native So before we dive into some more interesting things about bumblebee life cycles and histories and plants, let's take a break and play one of our favorite games, which is Bumblebee True or False. So each one of us has prepared a fun bumblebee fact to test our bumblebee knowledge of each other and you listeners as well. So who wants to go first? I'll go first.

Mikaela

Alright, you guys, so first true or false: bumblebees store nectar in honey pots.

Emily

Ooh, I just picture like Winnie the Pooh, like another— That's exactly what I was thinking.

Rachel

Um, I think Winnie the Pooh— if Winnie the Pooh had to be a bee, he would have definitely been a bumblebee.

Emily

Oh, he definitely would have.

Rachel

Yeah. Em, what do you think?

Emily

Mm, so I know like honeybees store things, but I don't know about bumblebees. I'm gonna go false with this.

Rachel

I'm gonna say true because I like Winnie the Pooh. I feel like he'd be a bumblebee with a honeypot.

Mikaela

Right, just like Winnie the Pooh, bumblebees do have what are called honeypots. And it's because they make these kind of structures in their nest, and then they store the nectar that they've gathered into those structures. But it's not making— they're not making honey like honeybees do. They only store it. It doesn't develop into a product like human beings would be able to use. It's only for their progeny. or themselves. All right, that was a good warm-up, but I actually have another one if you guys are ready.

Rachel

Yeah. Totally ready.

Mikaela

All right, all right. True or false: bumblebees have hairy tongues.

Emily

Um, I mean, bumblebees are so fluffy, I could kind of see this as being true.

Mikaela

Are they as fluffy inside as they are outside? No, I'm teasing. I don't know.

Rachel

Well, I kind of feel like bumblebees are like the orange cats of the world. And if cats have hairy tongues and bumblebees are like orange cats too, they're going to have a hairy tongue.

Mikaela

Interesting logic.

Emily

Okay. I like it.

Mikaela

All right, so this is actually a true fact. These hairy tongues are used to help lap up nectar, so it helps them collect it. And I know we found an interesting study that says the queen bee has less hair on her tongues than the worker bees do, and I can only assume that's because of evolution and because the workers are foraging a lot more, so they may be required to have a better tongue for collecting nectar than the queen. But what's kind of interesting is the length of tongues is very relevant to the bee world. Bumblebees and other native bees can be divided into what we call the short, medium, and long-tongued bees. And what that does is it kind of defines what flowers or what species of flowers that they, they they're able to collect nectar from and forage from. So for a short tongue, that's between like 4 and 9 millimeters. So a lot more shallow open flowers, like you would find in the Aster family, which is why we talk about using Aster plants so much is because everybody can use it. And then we have medium tongue species, which are 7 to 9 millimeters.

Mikaela

So not much difference, you know, very, very minute. And then we have the long tongue species, and this ranges from 12 millimeters to 20 millimeters. Mm-hmm. Up to 20 millimeters. And anybody who kind of knows the metric system, that's 2 centimeters. That's really long for an insect. I mean, like, pretty incredible.

Emily

I feel like that's as big as their head.

Mikaela

Right?

Emily

Yeah. Yeah.

Mikaela

That's probably all they have in their mouth is just their tongue. Because I can't imagine what else. So what that means is that they're able to gather from plants that have a more tubular flower shape, but some bees adapt by like cutting holes in those tubes to access the nectaries. So, you know, there's lots of different adaptations that bees use.

Emily

That's really fascinating. 220 millimeters. I know.

Rachel

That's really long. Where did you find that?

Mikaela

It's like the tip of your finger. That's like the last joint in the tip of your finger. For most people. Unless you're a tiny human being.

Emily

Yeah. Okay, Rachel, what's your true or false question for us? Those were good ones, Mikayla.

Rachel

True or false, do bumblebees have dandruff?

Emily

Ooh.

Mikaela

I'm gonna call false.

Emily

You know, they're so fluffy. I'm gonna say true.

Rachel

Okay. I went down a rabbit hole here. Because yes, true, she does have a dandruff-like substance. So they have these specialized glands located on the underside of their abdomen. Like honeybees, they consume nectar, and their bodies metabolize that sugar into a liquid wax, and it hardens into thin, translucent scales when it hits the air. When the queen secretes this, she uses it to start her nest. Yeah, and it's scraped off her abdomen by her legs and mounded until it's a malleable constructed honeypot.

Emily

Mm-hmm.

Rachel

And she uses that to cover her eggs and line the empty cocoons for use as storage containers, and sometimes, to cover the exterior of the nest with.

Mikaela

That's so economical of her.

Rachel

It is. In this day and age, she's doing it all.

Emily

It's also kind of mildly gross.

Mikaela

Yeah, a little gross.

Emily

I guess it's better to think of it as like a wax substance that she cleans off of herself than like real dandruff, which is like dead skin cells. Like, I can't imagine taking like my dead skin cells and like Building something out of them. Gross, dude.

Mikaela

Like making a sweater out of hair or something.

Emily

Oh yeah. But I mean, yeah, very ingenuitive of her. She's like, look, my kids, my kids need a home. I'm gonna, I'm gonna use the resources I've got.

Rachel

She's doing it. Yep.

Emily

She's a good mom. She's a provider. Okay, so our last bumblebee true or false is a common— if I say myth, I feel like that's giving it away. This is a common urban legend, maybe? Common myth about bumblebees, which is that bumblebees can't fly.

Mikaela

I feel like we all know that's not true.

Emily

Pretty sure all of us have seen a bumblebee fly. So that is in fact false. Bumblebees can fly. This myth, it was hard to find like an exact pinpoint on where it came from. I got several different sources, but the most common one said that in the 1930s there was a French entomologist, Auguste Magnac, who basically wrote a paper that basically said that he looked at a bumblebee and he didn't think it could fly. And he didn't understand how they could fly. And because of this though, there have been lots and lots of studies looking at bumblebees and their flight patterns and how they basically fly, even though from like an aerodynamic standpoint you wouldn't think that there would be. So there was a really neat one that came out of China in the early 2000s where they glued little tiny mirrors onto bumblebee wings to like look at the light reflection patterns. Hahaha. But the one that I found that I actually really liked, because they have lots of video recordings of bees flying, is one that came out of University of Washington in 2005, where they used high-speed cameras to basically film bumblebees flying and then ran it through— I don't know if they ran it through a program or they had grad students go slide by slide, but they basically mapped the wing pattern of bumblebees to see how they were able to fly.

Emily

We have kind of this big misconception when it comes to insect flight in that we think that they flap their wings up and down similar to the way that we think of like a bird or a bat, because we're associating flight with kind of animals we already know. In the case of bumblebees and a lot of other insects, they're not flapping up and down as much as they're flapping forward and backwards. So think of this as instead of putting your arms lifting with your shoulders. Instead, you're moving them forwards and backwards. And what this study found, and some other studies have found, is that bumblebees in particular tend to move more like a helicopter and less like an airplane when it comes to lift. So in addition to flapping forwards and backwards, they twist their wings slightly to create a crescent shape pattern. So the pattern that they go forward is not the exact same pattern as backwards. Mm-hmm. And I'm not gonna go into all the physics of this, 'cause I frankly didn't really understand all of the like forces up and down and lift and all this, but the idea behind it, at least from some of the research that I looked at, was that this creates a vortex, or swirling air pattern, that then allows to give them lift that they need to fly.

Emily

So, I don't know, I thought it was really cool. So yes, bumblebees can fly, but they don't fly the same way a bird does.

Rachel

That's so interesting.

Mikaela

Interesting.

Emily

There are some really cool YouTube videos of bees flying.

Mikaela

Yeah, they probably can slow them down and you can actually see a lot more of the motion.

Rachel

Really, really cool.

Mikaela

So where would we happen to find bumblebees? What do they need in order to survive? So there are some— there actually are 3 key things bumblebees need in the landscape in order to thrive and survive. The first one is a source of food, you know, a lot of flowers for collecting pollen and nectar and flowers that bloom over the period of time that they are foraging and awake, suitable places to nest and safe sheltered sites for overwintering because the queens do overwinter in this species. And so she needs a protected area. Again, a continuous supply of diverse season-long blooms. This helps her fuel her colony growth and support these queens as they emerge in spring and then as they spend the season preparing for winter. And just as important are some of these undisturbed nesting sites. So they actually will, will take place sometimes in abandoned rodent burrows or grassy tussocks. This is why native grasses are so great because a lot of those native bunch grasses provide overwintering and protect it. You guys knew I couldn't go without Maggie. I know. I hated grasses for one episode. But it, you know, it's true. It's hard to deny, man.

Mikaela

And then any other kind of protected ground-level cavities. And they'll also kind of use leaf litter or they'll use places in the woods if there's enough ground cover and undisturbed sites for them. And then finally, these overwintering queens depend on insulated, undisturbed areas where they can enter diapause, which is kind of like the insect hibernation, and they do this until the next spring cycle begins. So this is why we always encourage people to leave leaf litter, sometimes downed wood if it's, if it's not a hazard, uncut bunches of grasses, of course. And then these are all great winter sites for next year's queens. So again, just driving home the message that I feel like we say almost every other episode: leave the leaves in the fall. They just provide some really great cover for all our insects.

Emily

You have our permission to be a lazy gardener.

Mikaela

That's right, we encourage it.

Emily

Just rake them all up.

Mikaela

We lead by example.

Emily

Yeah, rake them all up, put them in a big pile someplace in the back corner, put them on your flower beds, just leave them. So many beneficial insects use them. So one interesting thing that bumblebees do that help them thrive in kind of these diverse climates that they are in, particularly in these temperate to more colder climates, is that they have this unique ability to thermoregulate. And this has been seen in other bee species, but it's most noted in bumblebees. So they have the ability to generate heat in their thoracic muscles. So this would be the middle segment of their body. And they do this by flexing those muscles and vibrating, which is often called shivering. They also have a neat mechanism that allows them to constrict the blood that's coming in and out of the thorax and allows for heat transfer and holding. And then if they've generated too much heat, they can loosen that channel and allow for the warmer blood to move back out into the abdomen and head. So— and this will allow their body to reach the minimum requirement of 30°C or 86°F that is needed for their wing muscles to kind of function properly in order for them to fly.

Emily

So this helps bumblebees be one of the first insects in the spring that you will see emerging and flying around to collect nectar. It also allows them to continue to forage into the fall when the temperatures start to drop. This will also allow bumblebees to be some of the common insect species that you will find on, say, like mountaintops or in more northern climates. There's actually several species that are only found in the Arctic for a very short period of time when Arctic flowers are in bloom, and it's because of this ability to do this. It also helps they are super hairy, and all of that setae, or hair, helps hold in that heat as well. So that fuzziness plays a real crucial part for these insects, as well as making them just plain adorable.

Mikaela

Fashion and function. Is what I call it.

Rachel

She's got style, she's got grace.

Emily

She's a queen amongst queens.

Mikaela

So speaking of queen, this speaks a lot about their social structure and their nesting habits because bumblebees are technically a social kind of insect, but not the same social as like honeybees, which have— or even like yellow jacket nests where they are a true social insect colony where they have one queen and then lots of worker insects, and then progeny. And bumblebees fall somewhere in the middle between social and solitary, and they call it eusocial. They're semi-social, so they'll have true queens who will have their progeny, and they'll have lots of workers, but not to the same extent. It's not as, as developed of a colony, and they'll actually have lots of generations within the same nesting site, so the daughters of daughters.

Rachel

Mm-hmm.

Mikaela

They are our only native North American bee that is kind of eusocial. There's other eusocial species out there, but not many carry this, this habit. And honeybees are technically from Europe, so they, they aren't even native to this region. So their nest size does depend on the species, but on average it's between 50 to 400 individuals. And if we were going to compare that to a honeybee colony, That's 50,000 bees in one hive. So not quite to the same level as honeybees, but within these colonies, they'll have division of labor or castes, which include a queen, worker bees, and then there's the male drones as well, or male bees. They do need a cavity to dwell in, and the queens are very opportunistic. So while, you know, a lot of wasps, species or honeybees will build in a brand new area, they'll use something that just fits the bill, a suitably sized cavity. Sometimes this is above ground, like in hollow trees, abandoned bird nests, rock walls, or in grasses. But they also can nest underground, especially if there's like an abandoned rodent hole and a place is— that's already kind of like warm and protected.

Mikaela

And again, these nests are not as organized as honeybee colonies. Mm-hmm., but the cells, or like the honey pots we talked about earlier, they're clustered together and they look kind of untidy. So while, while honeybees are very exact in their measurement, like their cell sizes are perfectly engineered, bumblebees don't quite worry about that so much. They're, they're a little bit like, yeah, maybe a little honey pot here, it's gonna look a little different than this one, they're different sizes, that's all right. And so they look a lot more like clumps of wax rather than like a true hive.

Rachel

She's your Titan friend.

Emily

Yeah. Yeah, basically. I was gonna say, when you're gathering your wax off of your own body and your daughter's body to make pots, you just stick those pots wherever you can fit them.

Rachel

It's true.

Mikaela

These honey pots are made on vibes, you guys. Pure vibes.

Emily

Xerces Society has some really good information about what to do if you find a bumblebee's nest. Ideally, leave it alone if possible. Wait out until fall when the colony dies out. But if you really have to move it, you can check with Xerces Society and reach out. Some local beekeepers can help with moving it. Not all of them do because it is a different species and because they will defend their colony.

Mikaela

Emily, you got stung. Didn't you? You were like moving a nest and you got stung.

Rachel

Oh god.

Emily

Yeah, I got stung twice in the head. They got caught in my hair. Yeah, I felt so bad. I was like, "Ah, she's caught in my hair." Well, and they have a straight stinger unlike a honeybee, so they can potentially sting more than once, but their venom is not as potent. That being said, if you're allergic to honeybee venom, you may potentially be allergic to bumblebee venom as well, so just approach with caution.

Rachel

So, the queen has survived the winter by hibernating underground in that dormant state that Michaela called diapause. So, I like to think of diapause as an insect's way of just hitting the snooze button constantly during that gross, icky weather when we all want to stay inside. Once she wakes up, she must quickly rebuild her strength by feeding on nectar from our early spring flowers. And those spring flower blooms are absolutely critical for providing her the fuel that she needs to survive and to begin building a new colony. After she fuels up, she is going to search for a dry sheltered nesting site. And like Mikayla said, that dry nesting site could be the site of an old rodent's nest, it could be an undisturbed log, or it could be just somewhere underground that she has found. Once she's inside that nesting chamber, she is going to begin to build her first structures of wax using those flakes that she produces from her body, and she will shape those into— Taka. Mist-managed, untidy little cups that she fills with nectar that she has collected from those flowers, and she actually carries some back in a crop, which is a specialized second stomach that she uses just for transport.

Rachel

When she gathers her pollen and packs it into those dense clumps, she places her first egg directly on top of it. And this comes into her thermodynamics as well and her heat regulation. To warm her brood, she will sit directly on those developing cells to generate heat by shivering her flight muscles. So essentially, she's vibrating her body to maintain those warm temperatures needed for egg development. She also feeds from her stored nectar pot during poor weather when foraging isn't possible, which allows her to continue to care for her developing colony even during some rainy spring days. After about 4 to 6 days, those eggs are going to hatch into white, C-shaped larvae. These wriggling, feisty, hungry young are are going to feed on the stored pollen provisions that she has placed in there, and they're going to grow rapidly, and they're going to shed their skins a few times as they develop. And this is probably the most critical stage that a queen faces, and it's a very delicate balancing act as a new mom, right? It's always a balancing act when you're a new mom. Keep the baby fed, eat yourself. It is.

Emily

Kudos to the queen bee, bumblebee mom. Like, she's got a lot to do.

Rachel

She does have a lot to do in a short amount of time. As you know, the most important thing is she has to keep that nest at a steady temperature of about 77 to 89 degrees by shivering. So just imagine how much energy she is using to keep that temperature and survive on the pollen and nectar that she has gathered. And at the same time, she's got to shiver that nest. She has to leave the nest periodically to forage for fresh nectar and pollen to keep her developing larvae well-fed. She's like modern age mama. Mm-hmm. This early founding stage is one of the most vulnerable periods of a bumblebee's life cycle because of the weather swings, food shortages from blooming plants, predators, and even exhaustion can result in the loss of the queen and her nest before the first generation of workers even emerge. After 2 to 3 weeks, The larvae will spin a tough, silky cocoon around themselves and enter into the next stage of development. Inside this cocoon, each larvae sheds its outer skin and transforms into a pupa. After about 2 more weeks, so we're about 5 weeks in, the new adult bumblebees emerge.

Rachel

At first, they are soft and weak and unable to fly, and it takes roughly a day for them to have their exoskeleton harden and for their wings to dry and become functional. The queen's first brood consists entirely of female worker bees, and once they emerge, these workers take over foraging duties, collecting nectar and pollen from flowers, feeding the subsequent larvae, and maintaining an—

Mikaela

An egg.

Rachel

Expanding the colony. This shift allows the queen to stay in the nest full-time, focusing solely on laying eggs as the colony grows. And the average lifespan of a female worker bee is about 28 days. So, it takes 5 weeks to develop and she only lives for 28 days. That's so sad. When the nest grows large enough, and food resources are sufficient, the queen begins producing reproductive eggs that develop into males and new queens. Once mature, the males leave the nest to mate with queens from other colonies, and they do not return. They spend much of their time feeding on nectar-rich flowers and actively searching for emerging queens to mate with. This is probably when we see all of, like, the little pictures of the male Or the bumblebees drunk in flowers, you know, just sitting there, passed out, sleeping in the flower covered in pollen.

Emily

Yeah.

Rachel

Future queens receive significantly more pollen as larvae and often up to 2 to 3 times as much as the worker larvae, allowing them to grow larger and build the energy reserves needed for survival. As adults, they continue to feed heavily on stored resources in the nest and make additional foraging trips to flowers to build up fat reserves. This stored energy is essential for them surviving winter diapause. After mating, they'll leave the nest and they'll begin the cycle again.

Emily

They really do have, like, a fascinating life cycle.

Rachel

They really do. I mean, it's just amazing that they spend so much time and energy and they live for so short of a time, you know? To me, that's amazing in itself.

Emily

28 days as an adult. It's kind of short.

Mikaela

It is. Yeah. All right, so now to the flowers, because they're not the only important thing, but they're a little bit important. So early spring native flowers are very important for the queen bumblebees as they are emerging from their winter winter diapause because these guys have spent, or girls, have spent months underground without food. And we know how we all feel when we get hangry. [LAUGHTER] So their first nectar meal can mean the difference between starting a new colony or not surviving at all. So the best plants provide both nectar for energy and pollen for developing eggs. So some early spring nectaring plants for bumblebees include Eastern redbuds, willows might be one of the actually earliest, earliest flowers that you'll see blooming. Spring beauties, which I know we've had as one of our native plants of the month, one of our previous episodes. Virginia bluebells, penstemon. But then equally as important are some late fall nectaring plants, which is a big group of goldenrods, asters, sedum, Joe Pye weeds, and even borage. And there's probably an even longer—

Rachel

I would think boneset would be a really good one.

Mikaela

Boneset would be a great fall. Yeah.

Rachel

What about pinkster blooms in the spring? Because they emerge so early.

Emily

I will say my redbud is a buzz in springtime when it's in bloom with bumblebees and carpenter bees. Like, you can hear the vibrations and hear the buzzing like feet away from it, and they are just all around them.

Mikaela

Same with crabapple.

Emily

Oh yeah.

Mikaela

We have a crabapple, which we only really have like one native species, but even the non-native, they will get a lot of attention.

Emily

But you know what they don't go to? Bartlett pear. So cut your Bartlett pears down and replace them with redbuds. Just give them that good chop at the bottom and put in a redbud.

Rachel

They don't really hardly care. Give them that soso chop.

Emily

Yep.

Rachel

I know this plant is a little bit later in the spring, but I absolutely love to sit next to my baptisia and watch them try to fit their big bodies into that flower. And they have an amazing way of just popping that pea flower open enough to just wiggle in and get in there. It's just, mine is always covered with bumblebees and it's just fun to sit there for a few hours and watch them.

Mikaela

And I would say that it's hard to find early spring blooming perennials, but trees in particular and shrubs are early spring bloomers. So thinking about native cherries, so things in the prunus family or Venus, sorry. Serviceberry, Amelanchier, is another really good one. And then the willow, like I mentioned before, that's probably the earliest thing you're going to see blooming. And blueberries. They love blueberries.

Emily

They do like blueberries. Well, and then in the middle of summer, bumblebees are notoriously known for buzz pollinating tomatoes.

Rachel

Yes, they are.

Emily

So if you want your tomatoes to get really well pollinated, you want bumblebees. And bumblebees don't have a massive foraging area. I think it's like much smaller than that of honeybees. So if you have some of these native plants to entice them to your area, they will likely come back and forage there. So later in summer when you have tomato plants, your tomato plants will definitely get pollinated with bumblebees around. So that's a, a prop to putting these plants out earlier. To learn more about specifically goldenrods and asters that you could potentially put in your landscape, check out past episodes because we have covered both of those plants in detail. There is a goldenrod and an aster for your landscape, no matter what your landscape is like.

Rachel

That's right. Do you love teenage stinky feet as much as we do?

Emily

I don't love teenage stinky feet. That's why I don't have kids.

Rachel

All right, so did you guys know that bumblebees secrete a a substance from their tarsi, which is their little feetsies, wherever they land, and it can be detected by other bumblebees. These secretions are often referred to as scent marks, and other bumblebees are able to use these social cues to tell each other which flowers have been fed on and might not have as much nectar. Hmm. So, fun facts.

Emily

I like that. It's a way so that they're not wasting energy trying to shove their big chunky bodies into teeny tiny flowers when someone's already fed on it.

Rachel

Yep.

Emily

Awesome. So hopefully by now we have convinced you, listener, that bumblebees are amazing and that you should love them as much as the three of us do. So you're probably asking yourself, what can I do to help the bumblebees? Well, bumblebees, like many other pollinators, face multiple threats from multiple sources, which would include habitat loss and degradation, climate change, pesticide and disease issues from non-native species. So some things that you can do to help bumblebees in your own garden and landscape would be doing things like planting flowers, specifically those native ones that we talked about. You can also provide those overwintering habitats for the queen. So once again, consider leaving those leaves. And then you can use integrated pest management to handle a lot of your garden pest issues and reduce pesticide usage in the garden and landscape. Also making sure that you read the label if you do decide that you need to use a pesticide for something, as most of our pesticides will be labeled now with the toxicity labels. So avoiding those toxic bee ones or making applications when bees are not likely to be around or present in the garden can really reduce the likelihood of them encountering pesticides.

Emily

Also, another thing I would add would be, especially in the heat of summer, bees need water sources. And this includes all types of bees, not just bumblebees. So if you can spare a little, uh, cup full of water with some stones in it, and just fill it up every single day so that they have a good clean water source. That can really help to provide our pollinators with water sources. In addition to kind of modifying your landscape, if you want to get more engaged with bumblebees, there are several community or citizen science projects that are focused specifically on bumblebees. And I think this is because they are so charismatic and so many of us love them. Love them. But they're also kind of an understudied group of bees compared to say like the honeybees because they're not quite commercialized. So there's a few different places you can go if you want to do some citizen scientist work. So one would be Bumblebee Watch, which would be bumblebeewatch.org. There's also Bumblebee Atlas. Um, this is a little bit more state-specific. So it's typically out in the western part of the United States and and then I think the Carolinas are engaging too.

Emily

Maryland's not part of it, unfortunately. The app iNaturalist also has the Backyard Bumblebee Count project as well. So pretty much all of these projects will offer some sort of training or guide to help you with identifying bumblebees, and then they will ask you to go out for a certain period of time and scout your garden or go to local parks or other areas where you'd have flowers, or you may potentially see bumblebees. And for a set amount of time, they just want you to observe how many bumblebees you see, try to take pictures of them, and then you can upload those photos to the website. And this basically helps researchers determine the status and conservation needs of bumblebees. One interesting thing is that has come out of these projects is because you have all these citizen scientists taking pictures and reporting bumblebees, is that they've actually found several bumblebee species that have recolonized or reappeared in areas where they thought were to be locally extinct. So this is really kind of helping us to scope out the status and conservation of bumblebee species across the United States. So, and if you want information to kind of help you with bumblebee identification, there is a wide variety of resources out there, in part because bumblebees are just so darn cute.

Emily

Um, so this would include in Maryland, we have the Bees of Maryland Field Guide, which was produced by the North American Native Bee Collective. There's also a really great publication from USDA Forest Service and the Pollinator Partnership called Bumble Bees of Eastern United States. The Xerces Society has all kinds of resources about all types of native bees, including bumble bees. And then there's also the Bumble Bee Flower Finder. Which is a website that can help you kind of narrow down native plants to grow in your area that are specifically good for bumblebees. So we will link to all of those in the show notes, but feel free to tap them for resources to help support our bumblebees. Thank you.

Mikaela

So the pick I have for this month is Monarda fistulosa, which also goes by many, many names. I've, I've heard like everything, wild bergamot, bee balm, just Monarda, horse mint. There's quite a few things. It's kind of called by all sorts of things depending on where you are locally. So no surprise here that the native plant pick for this month is a plant that is wildly beneficial for pollinators and bugs. Bumblebees in particular. This plant is about 2 to 4 feet tall with square stems and opposite leaf arrangement. Holler to our mint episode, because this belongs in the mint family. And true to form, they grow in clusters and spread very easily through rhizomes and seeds. It does prefer growing in a drier soil, although it'll grow in pretty much any type— clay, loam, sand. Um, it just prefers to be on the drier side. It will not handle wet. And it does not handle shade very well. It can handle part to full sun. And it usually— you're finding it in fallow fields, roadsides, and railway sites. Not disturbed sites per se, but like in a very meadow habitat. It's a very classic plant for a meadow.

Mikaela

The flower, which is what we're all really interested in anyways, right? Is a unique shape. It's a very tubular flower petals that are all over the flower head. Um, and they are the color, like a beautiful lavender purple color that starts blooming in June and it blooms for a long time. They can sometimes go through to September. And there are many cultivars available that do have variations of color. So you can find them like in pink to almost white. Uh, but the straight species really does have just a nice shade of purple. And the leaves also have a very strong smell when they're crushed, which you might recognize because bergamot is one of those ingredients in Earl Gray teas. And this particular plant has a very rich ethnobotanical background that Native Americans used to cook meat with the leaves, and they would use it, uh, in various medical, uh, situations. So for treating colds. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] They would use them in compressions, poultices, and they would use it for like stomach issues, stomachaches. Like, like it really was used in a wide variety of different manners. It's also a kind of popular essential oil. It has a very fresh herbal kind of lemony aroma.

Mikaela

It's really very pleasant. But again, no surprise here. This is a species that belongs to the Lamiaceae family. So it's a mint, has a strong smell, you know, and, and it attracts a lot of pollinators. And those tubular flowers are particularly attractive to bumblebees because, as we mentioned before, they tend to have pretty long tongues. They're one of the, the bigger bees that we find out there, so they really thrive with this plant because they have the tongue that's long enough to, to reach down and kind of access those nectary glands. So amongst many fine qualities, bee balm is beneficial for a larval host plant, specifically the hermit sphinx moth and the orange mint moth in the Raspberry Piraceae, specialist bees. So there's a little, a small black sweat bee that is a specialist to Monarda fistulosa, predatory insects, specifically sand wasps. [MUSIC] The mid-Atlantic is a predator of brown marmorated stink bug. They like to feed— they're not specifically feeding on bee balm, but they tend to favor it. And then of course bumblebees, hummingbirds, and even the hollow stems of this plant make for great bee nesting, so for cavity dwellers. And to top it all off, it's deer and rabbit resistant.

Mikaela

And of course resistant just means they are less likely to feed on it unless they're in very desperate situations, probably because of the strong smell and odor. Does this plant sound too good to be true? Why, yes it is. Because it is too good to be true. It does have a few downsides in the garden, namely the aggressive growth and spreading that can be kind of overwhelming for small areas. And I know, um, some people plant this and then they, they think it's a little too aggressive. Uh, again, in small areas, probably not very appropriate, but very good for use in meadows. Or if you have a larger property where you need something more aggressive to compete with weeds or invasive plants, it does a really good job of that. Another issue you might run into is powdery mildew. This is a very common issue. It's a foliar fungal disease that affects a wide array array of plants, but fistulosa is specifically very vulnerable to it. So while not harmful enough to actually kill the plant, many homeowners might not appreciate the appearance of a spotty white film on the leaves and the stems when it does get the powdery mildew.

Mikaela

As far as I know though, or as far as I've observed, I don't notice the powdery mildew on the flowers themselves. It leaves the flowers alone. It tends to be on the— Leaves. Lower leaves of the plant, and then it kind of works its way up, mostly because powdery mildew is like a, like a spring or early summer issue. And that is, is that. That's all I have for Fernanda Plant of the Month. A lot to take in. It's multifaceted.

Emily

Man, now I want to put this one in my garden too.

Mikaela

Yeah, you do.

Rachel

It's awesome.

Emily

I tried really hard to not make this month's Bug of the Month a bumblebee, but I kept circling back to this bumblebee, which is sort of an oddball bumblebee, and decided to just commit to this being an all-bumblebee episode, which is okay. So this month's bug of the month is the lemon cuckoo bumblebee, Bombus citronnese. So the lemon cuckoo bumblebee belongs to a subgenus of bumblebee species that have lost their ability to collect and store pollen and are unable to rear their own young. So instead, they rely on parasitizing host species of other bumblebees They are what we call an obligate brood parasite. The female lemon cuckoo bumblebee will invade the nest of a host species, take control, and force the worker bumblebees in that nest to raise and care for its offspring instead. So the lemon cuckoo bumblebee is found here in Maryland and across the, like, northeast through the Midwest. So its range goes all the way from, like, southern Canada and as far west as North Dakota. It gets its name from its lemony yellow coloration. Our female cuckoo bumblebees do not have pollen baskets on their hind legs, which is a way you can kind of tell them apart from other typical bumblebees in your garden.

Emily

Some of the preferred hosts to parasitize for the lemon cuckoo bumblebee would be the two-spotted bumblebee, the common eastern bumblebee, and the half-black bumblebee. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Cuckoo bumblebees tend to develop a specialized relationship with their host ones and have kind of co-evolved. So they tend to parasitize species that are similar within size and habits, as well as like life cycle, like when they emerge. The lemon cuckoo bumblebee is kind of unique in that it can parasitize or be a brood parasite on multiple species. Some other species of cuckoo bumblebees are very host-specific. Mm-hmm. Pacific. Females are active April through October with males becoming active June through October. This species relies on a wide variety of floral groups, but they've been most commonly found on asters and thistles. With the obligate brood parasitism, basically the females will emerge just like your typical bumblebee and they will feed on nectar and pollen pollen, but rather than spending time building a nest, they'll kind of wait a little bit longer and will locate a host nest of one of these other species that they can parasitize. And then will proceed to infiltrate it. Will basically take over the nest by killing or subduing the original queen bumblebee.

Emily

So she has special adaptations that will allow her to do this. So compared to— other bumblebees, she's going to have longer, stronger mandibles, which is the bee version of teeth. She's going to have a slightly harder exoskeleton, and she has a more powerful sting, which will allow her to win this fight. She will eventually kind of trick these worker bees into taking care of her, and then she will lay eggs in the honeypot combs where the other larvae would have gone, and the worker bees will then continue to care care for her larvae instead. So the resulting cuckoo bumblebee offspring will then emerge and will leave the colony to go mate. So again, they don't have a caste system where the female— her daughters aren't necessarily going to stick around and be her workers. Her daughters are, are ready to go out and mate and then infiltrate other colonies. While cuckoo bumblebees play a kind of limited role when it comes to pollination compared to our more traditional bumblebees. So because of their key association with other species, the presence of a cuckoo bee indicates a really healthy population of that host species in the area.

Emily

So that's my native bug of the month. Kind of an oddball bumblebee, a little— Little bit. But, you know what? She's got her place in the environment. She may not be as good a mom as the other ones, but you know, she's still looking out for her babies. No judging. Sheila says, "Look, I know my kids are terrorists. It takes a colony to raise them, and I can't raise them on my own." All right everybody, it's time for your garden tips of the month.

Rachel

Woohoo! It's hot, it's dry, and our gardens already feel like July, but we're in June. While we're trying to stay cool, the insects and the diseases in the garden are thriving, from our dreaded squash bugs sneaking into the garden, to early blight showing up on our precious tomatoes, to the flea beetles turning our eggplant leaves into Swiss cheese. There's no shortage of things to scout right now. And this is where a great IPM program really, really can change your garden. So, take a few minutes each day in the early morning to walk through your garden start looking under the leaves, check the stems, and catch problems early before they become overwhelming. A little pest control now can save a lot of frustration later in the season. On our morning scouts, we're going to keep an eye out for insects that could be our squash bug eggs or, um, squash vine borers, even tomato hornworms. You might even see those coming in soon, and those flea beetles. Keep watering and weeding, mulch those new crops to keep them from drying out. Straw is an amazing option, just make sure that you use weed-free, and get your soaker hoses out, put together, tested, set them on a timer, because we're only in the beginning of summer.

Rachel

We still have 90 more days to go.

Emily

Don't tell me that, girl.

Rachel

So, while you're scouting your garden in the morning, you want to keep an eye out for insects that are helping our garden thrive. So, learn how to identify our beneficial insects is just as important as spotting those potential pest problems. And this month you'll begin to notice ladybug larvae, and they're patrolling for aphids, or green lacewing larvae hunting for soft-bodied pests. You might even see mealybug destroyer larvae helping keep mealybugs in check. So, there are some really great guides out there that can help you learn your good bugs versus your garden pests, and get to know those. If aphids are a serious problem in your garden, and they usually tend to like peak in June, you can use a steady stream of cool water from your hose directed at the underside of leaves to knock aphids off. But more than likely, the ladybug larvae and the ladybug beetles will absolutely keep your aphids in check. If you are nationwide and you're noticing garden pests or issues in your garden and you have questions, snap a picture and send it to Ask Extension. We have a slew of horticulturalists that check those and answer questions within 24 to 48 hours, and they're region-specific. So, it's a great option that we provide within the Extension network.

Emily

Great tips, Rachel, as always. Reminding me of all the things I'm forgetting to do in my garden.

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Rachel

Exactly. Well, that's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoy it and will tune in next month for more gardening tips. If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at Garden time podcast. That's Garden T-H-Y-M-E. For more information about the University of Maryland Extension and these topics, please check out the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center website at go.umd.edu/hgic. Thanks for listening and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden.

Everyone 

Goodbye!

 Mikaela 

The Garden Thyme Podcast is a monthly podcast brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Mikaela Boley, Principal agent associate for Talbot County. Rachel Rhodes, senior agent associate for Queen Anne County, and Emily Zobel, senior agent associate for Dorchester County.

 
   Emily

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