Yah , fuzzy bumblebees eating my pears !
Never saw this before.
Lots of bumblebees hear this year.
This is labeled as magness pear.
Seams to be ripe about a month early .
Ate some a week ago. Went to pick today and heard buzzing .
As many as ~ 20+ on each pear . On tree , and drops .
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So I have a bumper crop of different bumble bees here this year.
A great Abundance of white and red clover on which they have been foraging.
The clover seams to have a pause in blooms just now.
These pears being the sweetest thing around, can’t blame them at all.
They are in a frenzy around this tree, one actually stung me while I was taking the pictures. This is unusual for foraging bees to sting ,not near the nest and all.
Never saw bumble bees hollowing out fruit before.
Yellow jackets and hornets yes, but not bumblebees.
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Wild! Never heard of such a thing. They must be desperate. May be worth the trade if it’s the difference between them surviving or not.
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Are the bees starting with damaged pears or ones without damage? Just curious because they normally go for fruit with at least a little skin break. Thanks in advance.
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Hard to tell if they had a skin break at this point.
I assume they gained access through a bird peck ?
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An old debate as old as time itself is almost sure to follow this post so before it begins I will post this now Do honey bees eat fruit? - Honey Bee Suite . Bumblebees and honeybees go through a dearth this time of year where very little if anything is blooming. With nectar hard to get things get creative. Orchardist begin to hang up sugar water traps for yellow jackets and other known fruit eaters. Grapes are one of their favorites but nothing passes up one of the sweetest fruits there is which is a pear. The green June beetles and Japanese beetles have been fighting hard to get my blackberries and pears for weeks now. In my situation the yellow jackets could eat 100 pounds of fruit and I would not notice.
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Thanks
Hi Hillbillyhort.
It is somewhat strange to see bumblebees eating the juice of the fruit.
I absolutely do not know the American bumblebees species (I know some of the European species and not all of them), but I am going to pass you the USDA link, where with a bit of luck you can identify the specie , and see if this type of behavior is normal in that specie .
Link USDA American bumblebees
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/bumblebees.shtml
Regards
Jose
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we have tons of bumbles of different species here and i cant say ive ever seen them eating fruit or going after sugar water in the hummingbird feeders. ants and hornets all the time. like was said. they must be desperate.
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