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Every child knows bee honey - but is there also honey from bumblebees? You can find out here whether the fluffy bumblebees also produce bumblebee honey.
Bumblebees (Bombus), like their close relatives, the bees, are among the most important pollinating insects in Germany. But while bees and bumblebees share many similarities, they differ in one important respect: while bees are known to produce the sweet honey, most have never heard of bumblebee honey. A frequently asked question is therefore whether bumblebees can make honey at all.
Bumblebee honey: what do bumblebees eat?
Like most pollinators, bumblebees feed on the pollen and nectar of various flowering plants. In search of possible food sources, the chubby insects fly from plant to plant and thus also pollinate them. In addition to fruit trees and garden plants such as the coneflower (Helenium sp.), the particularly bumblebee-friendly plants include wild plants such as the common bugloss (Echium vulgare). Bumblebee larvae, on the other hand, are fed honey produced by the queen bumblebee or her workers - Bumblebees do indeed produce honey.
Why is there no bumblebee honey?
Bumblebees, like bees, produce honey as food for themselves, but primarily for the rearing of their larvae. But why is there no bumblebee honey? This question can be easily explained by the way of life of the bumblebees: While about half of the bee colony overwinters together, only the young queens of the bumblebees survive the cold season. These usually bury themselves in the ground and hibernate here, for which they only need minimal energy supplies. Bees, on the other hand, do not hibernate, but warm each other up by vibrating their muscles. So that the bees have enough reserves for this tour de force, they build up large stores of honey in the summer, which we humans can use. The queen bumblebee and her workers, on the other hand, store little or no stocks of honey. This is how bumblebees make honey, but we humans can make bumblebee honeybut cannot be collected and used.
Tip: If you want to support bumblebees and especially their young queens after the winter, the best way to do this is with bumblebee-friendly plants. Seed mixtures such as the Plantura Beneficial Magnet are particularly suitable for this, as they provide a supply of food for the whole year through plants with different flowering times.
We have summarized the best way to attract bumblebees to your garden in our article "Attracting bumblebees: How to make your garden bumblebee-friendly".