Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide

Many of us love the furry look of bumblebees, but few of us know them well. Their populations, as with honeybees, are in decline. Bumblebees do not make honey, but they are colonizers and play a crucial role in pollination not just in the wild but as commercially available colonies for greenhouse crops. Williams (research entomologist, Natural History Museum, London), Robbin Thorp (entomology, emeritus, Univ. of California, Davis), Lief Richardson (doctoral candidate, ecology & evolutionary biology, Dartmouth Coll.), and Sheila Colla (project leader, Wildlife Perservation Canada) identify the 46 species of bumblebee that are found in North America (Mexico is not included), far more than previous guides. The introduction presents clear information on these bees generally, their distribution, colony cycle, and interactions with plants. The authors then outline methods of observing and attracting bumblebees and list by region the plants that bees forage upon. As these bees can look very much alike to the untrained eye, the authors present schematic illustrations of thorax striping by which to tell them apart, noting when one must look further to an anatomical feature as well. Excellent maps, each of North America in its entirety, have clear color coding to show habitat range and density of population.