Bombus

Aim - what this colour key can and can't do
Key design
How to use this colour key
Included species
Colour differences between queens and workers

.

Aim - what this colour key can and can't do

The aim for this key is to help in the identification of female (queen and worker) bumblebees from anywhere in the world to species. Bumblebee colour patterns are often highly variable within species but may be closely similar among species (see variation). Consequently, colour patterns when used alone are never going to be sufficient to distinguish some species. Nonetheless, colour patterns are used in most keys as an important part of identifying bumblebee species. Therefore this key can be used in the same way to find quickly a small number of the most likely candidates for closer morphological comparison. Greater precision will then require the use of morphological characters, such as of the male genitalia, which can be more difficult to use. Often identifying a specimen to subgenus first will increase precision substantially (keys to subgenera are available). In time, morphological and colour characters will be integrated within one key.

This key contains the more common colour patterns. It is based on individual specimens actually seen (or in a few cases, described in the literature), but no doubt other colour patterns exist and therefore will not be identified with this key. These patterns will need to be added to make the key more reliable. If you encounter females with other colour patterns, please send them as a loan so that they can be checked, coded and included in the key.

Some bees may not be identifiable using this key for other reasons. Bees that are wet or dirty, or have had their hair rubbed off, will not be identifiable with this key. Old bees that have spent a long time in the sun may fade (e.g. from red to yellow, or from yellow to nearly white) and so will not match the patterns of the fresh specimens shown here. Occasionally, bees are found that have very odd colour patterns, which are not shown here. They may either be mutants (e.g. with one or more colours completely missing), or may have been damaged during development (e.g. chilling may cause greying or additional pale bands to be added to the pattern).

.

Key design

The inter-active multi-access design of the key allows you to select which features to examine and in which order to examine them. This can be particularly useful if the coloured hair is abraded from some body regions.

The key was constructed with the Lucid 3.4 key-building software (see www.lucidcentral.org) and is being run using a Java applet. This may require an update of the Java software to be downloaded to your computer (see Lucid's help on Java). You may also be invited to register with Lucid for news of updates, but this is not essential.

.

How to use this colour key

(1) You may wish to use the mouse to drag the partitions between the subwindows to the bottom of the window to increase the image display area.

		As a simple example, try the key with the common eastern North American B. impatiens, which has a yellow top to the head, thorax, and tergum 1, but is otherwise black.

(2) Begin by selecting the region of the world from which a specimen originates. This will shorten the key. To do this, expand the Features tree in the upper left window by clicking the mouse on '+' next to world region, and click the box next to the appropriate region. Popup maps of the regions are included if needed (check that popups are not disabled by your browser

(Note: species' distributions do change, not least because people introduce them to new regions, e.g. B. terrestris, so if in any doubt as to whether a species is indigenous, do not use this filter.)

(3) If you know to which subgenus the species belongs, this can also be selected and will greatly reduce the number of options and risk of misidentification. Keys to subgenera for both sexes from morphological characters are available.

(3) Next, ask for the most discriminating features by selecting the toolbar button that shows an image of a wand. Alternatively,if you want to choose another feature manually (e.g. because the hair has been abraded from the best feature), then you can expand the feature tree manually by clicking on the '+' boxes in the feature tree and select another feature and state. If you do not know the subgenus and the wand (automatically select most discriminating feature) function chooses subgenera as the best option, then use the wand with the right arrow (two buttons to the right) to ignore subgenus and identify the next best feature.

(4) Click the box with the state of a feature (the colour of a colour-pattern element) that most closely matches your specimen. Clicking on the feature diagram will cause it to be enlarged (make sure that your browser has popups activated).

(5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 as often as necessary until the one or more patterns that correspond most closely are found. Clicking on an entity diagram in the right window will cause it to be enlarged. Please see the Lucid website for a complete explanation of the key functions (see www.lucidcentral.org).

.

Included species

.

Colour differences between workers and queens

For the great majority of species, workers and queens have nearly identical colour patterns. Exceptions where workers and queens are usually and strongly different include at least some B. argillaceus, B. digressus, B. ephippiatus, B. festivus, B. friseanus, B. ladakhensis, B. longipes, B. miniatus, B. pyrosoma, B. richardsiellus, B. rubicundus, B. rufofasciatus, B. senex, B. simillimus, and B. tunicatus. For these species, colour pattern is usually diagnostic for separating queens and workers. Queen patterns are only included here as separate from workers where the queen patterns differ substantially. This does not rule out the possibility that workers with identical patterns will be seen in the future. Patterns of female cuckoo bumblebees (subgenus Psithyrus) are included.

top of page