Once I learned that there are about 24 species of bumblebees in eastern North America, I wanted to know exactly which kind I had in my garden.  Identification seems like it should be pretty simple --- keys like this one break it down to a matter of color pattern.  Unfortunately, once I plugged in all of my choices, the key still said it didn't have enough data to decide between nine species.

A little more browsing narrowed down the choices.  Chances are my bees are the Common Eastern Bumblebee.  The species is pretty well named since it's the most common eastern bumblebee.

This post is part of our Bumblebee lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Bumblebees as pollinators Bumblebee behavior and buzz pollination Bumblebee identification How to encourage bumblebees in the garden Bumblebee decline

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.