Common eastern bumblebee
| Bombus impatiens | |
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| Queen | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Apidae |
| Genus: | Bombus |
| Subgenus: | Pyrobombus |
| Species: | B. impatiens |
| Binomial name | |
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Bombus impatiens Cresson, 1863 |
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| The range of Bombus impatiens. | |
Bombus impatiens, the common eastern bumble bee, is the most commonly encountered bumblebee across much of eastern North America. They can be found in the Eastern Temperate Forest region of the eastern United States, southern Canada, and the eastern Great Plains. Because of their great adaptability, they can live in country, suburbs, and even urban cities. This adaptability makes them a great pollinator species, leading to an increase in their commercial use by greenhouse industry. This increase consequently led to their farther spread outside their previous distribution range. They are considered one of the most important species of pollinator bees in North America.
The first part of the name Bombus impatiens comes from the genus Bombus, which is also commonly known as bumblebee and belongs to the tribe Bombini. The latter half of its scientific name may come from the flowers of the genus Impatiens, which is one of its food sources. An alternative explanation is that these bees are easily provoked into stinging, and so are "impatient."
Including B. impatiens, the Bombus genus contains 250 species and most species are characterized by their eusociality or parasitic nature. Specifically, the genus Bombus has 49 subgenera, and B. impatiens belongs to the subgenus Pyrobombus.B. impatiens is also of the Hymenoptera order and Apidae family which characterizes its kin selection and relatedness.
The bees of B. impatiens are similar to those of B. bimaculatus, B. perplexus, B. vagans, B. sandersoni, and B. separatus in their appearance. They have short and even hair, medium-sized heads with cheeks that are similar in width to their heads, and a long and rectangular body. In general, queens and workers are similar in their coloring, pubescence, and structure. However, with a body length of 17–23 mm, queens have bigger bodies than males or workers. Workers have bodies that are 8.5–16 mm, and males have bodies that are 12–18 mm long. The differences in their sizes can be observed by the differences in their larval weight at second instar. In addition to the difference in their sizes, males slightly differ in their coloring. While queens and workers are both black with a yellow thorax and first abdominal segment, males have a yellow face and head.
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Wikipedia