Questions about bumblebees

1) Yes, it seems not so easy to distinguish them. If hortorum, then yes, it is easy to distinguish there. But in the direction of what kind of error, how is it? In principle, you can confuse lucorum with terrestris and vice versa

2) Regarding the nests, I analyzed all but the last one, the stone (lapidarius) has large nests, and its aggressiveness is quite high. And so, in principle, almost the same for all nests.
Only here it is not clear how this is "aggressiveness between individuals of their own species"? What is it when females fight for their nests? And the degree of sociality. it's really hard to imagine what it's like.
In general, a strange series, I wonder what it corresponds to ?

1. Yes, in the flight of figs you can distinguish, it's hard.

I'll explain as best I can:

1. imagine a certain feature - the color of the abdomen, which in two species of bumblebees is almost the same, but still not quite. now if this color is quantitatively characterized and the distribution is built for each species, it may turn out that we get two overlapping distributions with different sigmas. In the area of overlapping distributions, the error in either direction will be 50%, but the overlap is not the same!

Example: let's say there are 100 bumblebee species flying over a field, one with a narrow color distribution of stripes on the abdomen, and the other with a wide one. For example, the overlap is such that for a species with a narrow distribution, the overlap zone affects 50% of the distribution, and for the second - 24%. We will confuse bumblebees with this color probably about the same, that is, there will be 37 conditionally defined "territories", and 37 conditionally defined "lukorums", in fact, the ratio of equally colored individuals of two species is 2:1. This effect may be aggravated or leveled depending on the actual ratio of the number of individuals of the two confused species on the field.

This model is simplified, with only one attribute. I absolutely do not know what other signs besides color the entomologist's eye pays attention to when determining bumblebees. But we can't rule out more incorrect assumptions, for example, that one species is slightly rounder (and this, for example, is not true), then many more rounded ones will go in one pile, although it will be a different species. This is what I had in mind when making systematic mistakes in the direction of one type.

I came across this when determining the gender of frogs without pronounced sexual characteristics. For example, "exactly males" can be distinguished from "exactly females", and the group is divided almost arbitrarily by the type of unisex, as a result, the division leads to the fact that in the group of males almost all males, and in the group of females up to a third of males. This is already found out when they start singing and mating in aquariums. Therefore, I repeat the question-is such a bias possible in the definition of these bumblebee species and in which direction is it more likely?

2. By sociality, I meant the level of relationships within one social group, for example, among workers. Namely, how much they gravitate to each other, that is, whether they prefer to form groups, when meeting an individual of their own species (not necessarily their family) they prefer to stay close or not, whether they are absolutely neutral when competing for food, and drones in the spring for the female. How often do conflicts arise on this basis - are there any statistics on different types? The degree of attraction to each other and conflict in ordinary meetings and conflict situations?

3. Immediately there was a question about bees (honeybees and those close to them). The next level of sociality where-up, down? What is the resulting row: wasps-bumblebees-bees? Is this based on the organization of the community structure or in the sense in which I wrote it too?

4. And yet, just wondering, is it possible to get a series of these 4 bumblebee species (you can rearrange them in places) that would represent the gradient of certain biological (ecological) properties of the species?

1. Yes, such a skew exists, and this is the problem with the definition of "rally". Although in principle, terrestris and lucorum differ quite well in the laboratory. But in which direction... By the way, terrestris is not just one species, but several.

2. There are no groups in the nest as such, except for the division of responsibilities that is present. It's hard to say about the attraction to each other. I haven't seen anything like this in the literature, but based on my own observations, I can assume that it exists. I.e., I have repeatedly observed this behavior, but to prove this statement, you need a lot of statistics, which, alas, is not yet available.

Identifying bumblebees on the fly - I don't know if it has any practical significance... On the fly, not everyone can distinguish lapidarius and terrestris, especially depending on the conditions of observation, not to mention these species, so in my opinion this is only theoretical reasoning

As for the groupings, I also casually observed something similar in bumblebees, but again, I certainly don't have detailed observations. So to say that this phenomenon has individual forms, that is, there is some attachment of one bumblebee to another, whether there are preferences - "who to sit next to" I can't, I haven't read it anywhere and I haven't set out to observe it myself.

In bumblebees and bees, I have never seen aggression on flowers, when collecting nectar. Not in any form. So the question is, is it really not there, or did I just not see it?
In public wasps, aggression happens, I think that sometimes it ends even so that one of the participants gets larvae.
Bees have "bee theft", but this is something else, I think.
As for breaking into someone else's nest, it seems to me that such a case rarely happens in natural conditions in bumblebees. I haven't seen a high - density settlement, so I've seen two nests on a hundred square meters - and so on in a large territory-there are such places, but we don't have many nests, and it's hard to find them, because they are weak in years.
At least I myself have never seen the family's reaction to someone else's bumblebee. I wonder if there is a bee rule-when with a burden, the bee is allowed?

Identifying bumblebees on the fly - I don't know if it has any practical significance...

I really needed it. The truth is more in distinguishing the genera Bombus and Psithyrus.

It seems to me that Psithyrus seems to have more darkened wings than Bombus? However, in flight, this is not so noticeable. Well, the size, of course-as with a very large female bumblebee. But it is quite possible that this is not true for all Psithyrus species.

Yes, their wings are darkened and the belly is more bald, and, of course, there is no mirror on the leg. But in flight, really, not very noticeable. I determined them by the type of flight, they do not fly like Bombus's.

Bombus are also prowling, there's something else going on. In short, you need to see And the naked belly sparkle.

comrades, how can I attract bumblebees for nesting in the spring, please chew them, and in the forest in what places to look,in burrows-no, there are only wasps