Bumble bee ready to take flight from a birdhouse. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

If you've been itching for that long--awaited book about North America's bumble bees,  the itch and the wait are over.

 

You can now order the book, titled "Bumble Bees of North America: An identification Guide," on the Princeton University Press website.

Billed as "the first comprehensive guide to North American bumble bees to be published in more than a century," it allows readers, both amateurs and professionals, to identify all 46 bumble bee species found in North America  and learn  about their ecology, changing geographic distributions, and the endangered and threatened species.

 

Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, is one of the four authors. Lead author is Paul H. Williams, a research entomologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Others making it happen: authors Leif L. Richardson,  a doctoral candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Dartmouth College; and  Sheila R. Colla, postdoctoral fellow at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and a project leader at Wildlife Preservation Canada.

 

Bumble bees, you know, are among the most recognizable of the world's 20,000 species of bees. The genus, Bombus, has only 250 species. A small number, indeed.

 

For the past nine years, we've photographed them gathering nectar and pollen, and buzz-pollinating tomatoes.  We've watched the queen searching for readymade nests, which are usually "abandoned rodent dens, open grass tussocks, hollow logs, and aboveground manmade structures," as the authors point out.

 

One summer we observed bumble bees nesting in a bird house positioned in an almond tree on the grounds of  the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. A farmer donated the birdhouse--bumble bees included--to Thorp.  

 

 

 

 

 

And, hopefully, more bees!