by Dave Goulson
30. Some plants, such as the bird’s-nest orchid, are entirely parasitic, gaining all their nutrients from other plants. They have no need for chlorophyll since they do not bother to photosynthesise themselves, and so are usually an anaemic pale brown in colour. Yellow rattle and its relatives are described as hemiparasitic because they have a mix-and-match strategy; they do make their own energy via photosynthesis and so they need green leaves, but they also steal nutrients from other plants when they can.
31. These spectacular insects normally hang around the tops of oak trees, and so are seldom seen. One old-fashioned technique that was used by butterfly collectors was to place a well-rotted dead rat on a woodland ride. Beautiful though the butterflies are, they have a macabre taste for the juices that leak from such a corpse and are often lured down.
Chapter 16. A Charity Just for Bumblebees
32. Twenty-seven species have been described from the UK, but the cryptic bumblebee was not discovered here until very recently, and the tree bumblebee did not arrive until 2001.
33. In truth the apple bumblebee may never have been resident in the UK. It is known only from four specimens, captured by one Frederick Smith and his son Edward on the dunes near Deal in Kent in about 1865. Smith was a highly experienced entomologist who worked at the British Museum, so the record is likely to be genuine, but none have been recorded since.
34. Charles Darwin experienced this phenomenon first-hand. The Darwin and Wedgwood families intermarried repeatedly over four generations, with Darwin marrying his cousin Emma. They had ten children, three of whom died early in life and three more of whom never had children of their own. It is likely that the taboos against marriage between relatives, which are widespread in human societies, came about to prevent such instances.
35. I must immediately apologise for this shockingly stereotypical portrayal of a farmer. Of course they are not all male or from Somerset, except in my head. Dumbledore, you may have gathered, is the old English name for bumblebee, possibly originating in Somerset or Sussex.
36. This book, by Oliver Prys-Jones and Sarah Corbet, is a great little introduction to British bumblebees, with a good identification guide, distribution maps and lots of drawings and pictures.
37. This reminds me of my favourite adage, from an old home winemaking recipe book: ‘Five gallons are as easy to make as one, and last nearly twice as long.’
Chapter 17. Return of the Queen
38. Strangely, the old-fashioned hair curlers, plastic open-ended cylinders with lots of small holes and protruding nobbles on the sides, are perfect for temporary storage of bumblebee queens. Each hair curler is stoppered at both ends with the queen inside, and then they can be packed together with dental wadding between them, the latter soaked in sugar solution. So long as they are kept cool, queens can survive for a week or so like this, occasionally poking their tongues into the dental wadding for a refreshing drink.
39. Hedgehogs in New Zealand provide a neat example. They were introduced before bumblebees in small numbers, and the resulting inbreeding has led to them having unappealingly malformed teeth. Nonetheless, in the absence of competitors they survive very well, and have made an enormous nuisance of themselves. Even with their sub-standard dentition they cheerfully and effectively consume the eggs of endangered birds such as the black stilt and black-fronted tern. One hedgehog was found to contain 283 weta legs; these are fearsome-looking mouse-sized crickets, found only in New Zealand, which are rapidly heading towards extinction thanks to our prickly friends and other introduced enemies.
APPENDIX
Common and Latin Names of British Bumblebees
Some of my fellow scientists may be a little annoyed by my persistent use of common names for bumblebee species. This is frowned upon as it can lead to confusion: different common names are used in different countries, and sometimes multiple common names may be in use. On the other hand, a blizzard of Latin names can be rather off-putting. Below are the formal Latin names and English names of the British bumblebee species. The English name for the cryptic bumblebee I made up, but it seems a logical translation of the Latin, and appropriate enough for a bee that can be distinguished from other species only by examining its DNA.
Bombus barbutellus
Barbut’s cuckoo bumblebee
Bombus bohemicus
Gypsy cuckoo bumblebee
Bombus campestris
Field cuckoo bumblebee
Bombus cryptarum
Cryptic bumblebee
Bombus cullumanus
Cullem’s bumblebee
Bombus distinguendus
Great yellow bumblebee
Bombus hortorum
Garden bumblebee
Bombus humilis
Brown-banded carder bumblebee
Bombus hypnorum
Tree bumblebee
Bombus jonellus
Heath bumblebee
Bombus lapidarius
Red-tailed bumblebee
Bombus lucorum
White-tailed bumblebee
Bombus magnus
Northern white-tailed bumblebee
Bombus monticola
Bilberry bumblebee (blaeberry bumblebee in Scotland)
Bombus muscorum
Moss carder bumblebee
Bombus pascuorum
Common carder bumblebee
Bombus pomorum
Apple bumblebee
Bombus pratorum
Early bumblebee
Bombus ruderarius
Red-shanked carder bumblebee
Bombus ruderatus
Ruderal bumblebee or large garden bumblebee
Bombus rupestris
Hill cuckoo bumblebee
Bombus soroeensis
Broken-belted bumblebee
Bombus subterraneus
Short-haired bumblebee
Bombus sylvarum
Shrill carder bumblebee
Bombus sylvestris
Forest cuckoo bumblebee
Bombus terrestris
Buff-tailed bumblebee
Bombus vestalis
Southern cuckoo bumblebee or vestal cuckoo bumblebee
Acknowledgements
Particular thanks are due to my agent Patrick Walsh for his support and encouragement, and to Ellen Rotheray and Kirsty Park, my first and best reviewers. I’d also like to thank all of my research collaborators and my students for their ideas and enthusiasm, and to ask their forgiveness for any inaccuracies in my recall of events. Thanks are also due to my wife, Lara, and our three lovely boys, who somehow put up with my considerable eccentricities.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Alcock, John
amber
Amin, Ruhul
ant
Angraecum sesquipedale
Antherophagus nigricornis
Apicystis bombi
Apoidea
apple
apple bumblebee
aquilegia
Arctic
Australia
badger
Baker, Barbara
Banks, Brian
bee-eater
beewalks
beewolf
Belgium
bilberry bumblebee
bird’s-foot trefoil
bird’s-nest orchid
Bombus dahlbomii
Bombus deuteronymous
Bombus franklini
Bombus hyperboreus
Bombus hypocrita
Bombus melanopoda
Bombus niveatus
Bombus polaris
Bombus rubriventris
Bombus wilmattae
borage
Braconidae
Brown, Mark
brown-banded carder bumblebee
Buckland, Fran
k
buddleia
buff-tailed bumblebee
Bumblebee Conservation Trust
burnet moth
butterfly
campion
Casey, Leanne
cat
catmint
Cederberg, Bjorn
Charente
China
Chittka, Lars
chives
Christchurch, New Zealand
cinnabar moth
clover ley
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
comfrey
commercial bumblebees
common carder bumblebee
Conopidae
courtship
cowslip
cow-wheat
Cretaceous
cricket
Crithidia bombi
cuckoo bumblebee
Cullem’s bumblebee
dandelion
Darvill, Ben
Darwin, Charles
Dawson, Bob
De Jonghe, Roland
Defence Animals Centre
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT)
Dickinson, Emily
dinosaur
diseases
DNA fingerprinting
Donovan, Barry
dragonfly
drifting
Dungeness
Durrell, Gerald
early bumblebee
echidna
Edwards, Mike
Ellington, Charles
Ellis, Ciaran
Ellis, Jon
Eltz, Thomas
England, Bridget
evolution
eyebright
Feltham Hannah
Fereday R. W.
fertilizer
flower colour preferences
foraging behaviour
Ford, E. B.
forest cuckoo bumblebee
fox
foxglove
France
Gammans, Nikki
garden bumblebee
garden
gorse
Grantz, Gerald J.
Graystock, Pete
great tits
great yellow bumblebee
Hadza
Hanley, Mick
haploid
harmonic radar
Harrison-Cripps, Jennifer
hawk moth
hay meadow
heath bumblebee
Hebrides
hedgehog
hedgerow
Heinrich, Bernd
hemiparasite
hibernation
Himalayas
Hitler, Adolf
Holland
hollyhock
homing
honey
honeybee
Hopkins, Tony
horse chestnut
hoverfly
Hughes, Bill
hummingbird
huntsman
Huxley, Thomas
hybrid
hydrocarbon
Hymenoptera
inbreeding
Independent
intensification, farming
Japan
Kells, Andrea
Kent
kestrel
kiwi fruit
knapweed
Knight, Mairi
landmark
larvae
lavender
Lee, Paul
legumes
Leopold, Aldo
Leverhulme Trust
Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos
Lubbock, John
lungwort
lupin
Lye, Gillian
machair
Martin, Andrew
mating
McCarthy, Mike
mice
mimicry
mink
mite
moss carder bumblebee
moth
Mutilidae
nectar
Nevada bumblebee
New Zealand
Newman, H.
nitrogen fixation
North America
Nosema bombi
O’Connor, Steph
oilseed rape
O’Neill, Kevin
Oronsay
Osborne, Juliet
owl
parasites
parrot
Patterson’s curse
Peat, James
Penado, Andreia
Perthshire
pesticide
pheromone
pig, beer-drinking
pigeon
pollen
pollination
pooter
predators
protozoa
Ptacek, Vladimír
pussy willow
Pywell, Richard
quail
rabbit
Rayner, Pippa
red bartsia
red-belted bumblebee
red clover
Redpath, Nicky
red-shanked carder bumblebee
redstart
red-tailed bumblebee
Reid, Rosemary
reintroduction
Rhizobium
rhododendron
robber fly
root nodule
Romney Marsh
rosemary
Rothamsted Research
Rotheray, Ellie
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
ruderal bumblebee
sage
Salisbury Plain
Sangster, Liz
Sarcophagidae
scabious
Schmid-Hempel, Paul
Sears, Jane
Sheppard, David
short-haired bumblebee
shrike
shrill carder bumblebee
Shropshire
Sladen, Frederick
smelly footprints
Smout, Anne-Marie
sniffer dog
social behaviour
Somerset Levels
South America
Southampton
southern cuckoo bumblebee
Southern, Lucy
Spaethe, Johannes
Sparrow, Kate
Sphecidae
sperm plug
sperm
Sphaerularia bombi
spider
SS Aorangi
SS Tongariro
St John’s wort
stag beetle
stingless bee
Stirling
Stout, Jane
sugaring
swallowtail butterfly
Swift, Jonathan
Tasmania
Tasmanian devil
taxidermy
Tekapo, New Zealand
territoriality
thermocouple
thermoregulation
thyme
Toby the sniffer dog
tomatoes
tongue
tracheal mite
tree bumblebee
Twizel New Zealand
Uintatherium
usurping
Varroa
velvet ant
viper’s bugloss
virus
voles
Volucella bombylans
wasp
Waters, Joe
Watkins & Doncaster
wax moth
weed
weta
white clover
Whitehorn, Penelope
white-tailed bumblebee
Wicken Fen
Wilson, E. O.
Woodall, Lucy
yellow rattle
Young, Jill
About the Author
DAVE GOULSON studied biology at Oxford University and is now a professor of biological sciences at the University of Sussex. He founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, whose groundbreaking conservation work won him the Heritage Lottery Award for Best Environmental Project and the Social Innovator of the Year Award from the Biology and Biotechnology Research Council in 2010.
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br /> A STING IN THE TALE. Copyright © 2013 by Dave Goulson. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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“Eric the Half a Bee.” Words and Music by John Cleese and Eric Idle © 1970. Reproduced by permission of EMI Virgin Music Ltd.
ISBN 978-1-250-04837-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-04838-7 (e-book)
Originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, a division of Random House Group Limited
First U.S. Edition: May 2014
eISBN 9781250048387
First eBook edition: March 2014
