Yellow Faced Bumblebees * Bombus vosnesenskii

The Yellow Faced Bumblebees are colonial nesting bees. The Yellow Faced Bumblebees are usually quite calm and rarely sting. This California Bumblebee is hanging onto a Sticky Snapdragon flower, Antirrhinum multiflorum. During the heat of the day on a hot day the Yellow Faced Bumblebees bees were seen hanging by their tongues from these flowers. Bombus vosnesenskii has yellow hairs on the face and head and a yellow band near the rear. The Yellow Faced Bumblebees are very active and can be very effective pollinators. Yellow Faced Bumblebees can pollinate as many as 10 times as many flowers as a honey bee can. We have had a severe decline in the number of honeybees in our garden and an equivalent increase in the numbers of these guys and other native bees. Yellow Faced Bumblebees are active from mid Spring into the Fall in our area. Yellow Faced Bumblebees can fly in colder conditions and in lower light conditions than honeybees. Yellow Faced Bumblebees like Lupines, Sages, Asters and plants in the Pea family. A video includes the Yellow Faced Bumblebee as it feeds on nectar from the Woollypod Milkweed, Asclepias eriocarpa with many other Tarantula Hawks and Carpenter Bees. In the lower images the Yellow Faced Bumblebee is coming in for nectar from Keckiella breviflora, the Yawning Penstemon. Yellow Faced Bumblebees is common in the Western Coastal states as well as into Baja and British Columbia.