Cuckoos

It's probably a bit late to talk about the first cuckoo of spring - many cuckoos will now have long since done their dastardly work and are winging their way back towards Africa.  But there seem to be a lot of cuckoos about at the moment - the ones I'm talking about, though, are cuckoo bumblebees.  Cuckoo bumblebees are at least as dastardly as their avian equivalents - they invade the nest of true bumblebee species, kill or oust the incumbent queen, and coerces the workers to feed and tend her own eggs and larvae.  The reason so many are about at the moment is that that cycle has now finished and a new generation of male and queen cuckoo bees has taken to the air to mate so that the dastardly work can continue.

I've managed to get a few photos of the cuckoos which are at a casual glance no different to the real bumblebees.  Actually their success depends on them looking roughly like the species that they parasitize, so that the workers don't get suspicious when the queen takes over the nest.

Probably the most common cuckoo bumblebee is the Vestal bumblebee - Bombus vestalis.  It is the most common because it parasitizes nests of our most common bumblebee, the buff-tailed bumblebee - Bombus terrestris.  Note the small patch of yellow hair above the white tail, and the dark wings that most cuckoos have.  The hind leg, just above the yellow patch is also hairy.  In the true bumblebees this would be shiny as it is where she sticks her pollen.  Cuckoo bumblebees don't need to collect pollen - the parasitized workers do that.

Another that you may see around - we had one in our garden - is the Hill cuckoo bumblebee - Bombus rupestris.  With its red tail, it's no surprise that it parasitizes the nests of the Red-tailed bumblebee - Bombus lapidarius.

On a recent visit to Sissinghurst gardens with the Pett Gardening Club, I found this Forest Cuckoo bumblebee - Bombus sylvestris.  In this case it's a male (you can tell by the thin line of orange hairs on his tail).  This species parasitizes the nest of the Early Bumblebee - Bombus pratorum, our smallest British species.  Almost as interesting as the bee is the flower that it is feeding from - I think it is chives which normally has purple flowers, but this one being in the White Garden, is of course, white.