Bumblebees

Today I was thinking about bumblebees, and the way they steal nectar from blueberry flowers.  Instead of trying to crawl into the flowers -- likely impossible, given relative size of flower versus bee -- they poke a hole near the base of the corolla, then suck up the nectar through the hole with their long tongues. 

One day back when I worked at Gray Herbarium, I wondered if I'd see this on old herbarium specimens.  So, I browsed thru some cabinets & pulled out a bunch of specimens, some over 100 years old.  Sure enough, at the base of almost every flower was that little hole.  Cool ol' bumblebees, stealing nectar for a hundred years.

A picture of bumblebee mouthparts:

In the autumn, you can pet bumblebees.  In the early morning of autumn days, you can often find male bumblebees hanging out on flowers.  They sleep there overnight, waiting for a chance to mate with later-arriving females.  Because they're still cold from the night, the bees are rather torpid.  Reach out a finger and stroke the fuzzy back of a bee!