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For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
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Upcoming Events

National Moth Week was July 19-27, and the Summer 2025 gathering in Louisiana, July 19-27

Photos of insects and people from the 2024 BugGuide gathering in Idaho July 24-27

Moth submissions from National Moth Week 2024

Photos of insects and people from the 2022 BugGuide gathering in New Mexico, July 20-24

Photos of insects and people from the Spring 2021 gathering in Louisiana, April 28-May 2

Photos of insects and people from the 2019 gathering in Louisiana, July 25-27

Tribe Bombini - Bumble Bees

Representative Images

Bumblebee - Bombus perplexus - male B. perplexus queen - Bombus perplexus - female Common Eastern Bumble Bee?? - Bombus bimaculatus bumblebee on chicory - Bombus terricola Bombus nevadensis? - Bombus nevadensis - female Bee #1 - Bombus citrinus american bumble bee - Bombus pensylvanicus Bombus vosnesenskii

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon (Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps)
No Taxon (Apoidea (clade Anthophila) - Bees)
Family Apidae (Cuckoo, Carpenter, Digger, Bumble, and Honey Bees)
Subfamily Apinae (Honey, Bumble, Longhorn, Orchid, and Digger Bees)
Tribe Bombini (Bumble Bees)

Synonyms and other taxonomic changes

Long ago pollen-collecting species were sometimes ranked as a subfamily, Bombinae, or even a family, Bombidae, with Psythirus sometimes removed to another higher taxon (Psithyridae) due to its parasitic habits.

Explanation of Names

Bombini Latreille 1802

Numbers

the tribe contains a single genus(1)

Remarks

Most are primitively eusocial(2)

Print References

Milliron, H. E. 1971. A monograph of Western Hemisphere bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae; Bombinae) I. The genera Bombus and Megabombus subgenus Bombias. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 82: 1-80.
Milliron, H. E. 1973a. A monograph of Western Hemisphere bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae; Bombinae) II. The genus Megabombus subgenus Megabombus. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 89: 81-237.
Milliron, H. E. 1973b. A monograph of Western Hemisphere bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae; Bombinae) III. The genus Pyrobombus subgenus Cullumanobombus. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 91: 239-333.
Mitchell, T.B. 1962. Bees of the eastern United States, volume 2. North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Technical Bulletin 152: 1-557.
Stephen, W. P. 1957. Bumble bees of western America. Oregon State College: Agricultural Experiment Station, Technical Bulletin 40. 163 pp.
Thorp, R. W., D. S. Horning Jr., and L. L. Dunning. 1983. Bumble bees and cuckoo bumble bees of California (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Bulletin of the California Insect Survey 23: 1-79.
Warriner, M.D. 2011. Bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of remnant grasslands in Arkansas. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 84(1): 43-50.
Warriner, M.D. 2012. Bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of Texas: historical distributions. (3)
Williams, P.H. 1998. An annotated checklist of bumble bees with an analysis of patterns of description (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Bombini). Bulletin of The Natural History Museum (Entomology) 67: 79-152.
Williams, P.H., S.A. Cameron, H.M. Hines, B. Cederberg, and P. Rasmont. 2008. A simplified subgeneric classification of the bumblebees (genus Bombus). Apidologie 39 (1): 46-74.

Works Cited

1.Ascher J.S., Pickering J. (2024) Discover Life bee species guide and world checklist (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila)
2.The Bees of the World, 2nd edition
Charles D. Michener. 2007. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
3.Bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of Texas: historical distributions.
Warriner, M.D. 2012. Southwestern Naturalist 57(4): 442-445.
Contributed by Joel Kits on 16 April, 2005 - 8:53pm
Additional contributions by Beatriz Moisset, Mike Quinn, John S. Ascher, v belov
Last updated 23 October, 2023 - 8:59am

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