Red-tailed Bumblebee

Red-tailed bumblebee

No prizes for guessing that this is a red-tailed bumblebee, Bombus lapidarius, but it’s different to a regular worker, as this is a male, with a yellow collar and cap and a foxy-coloured ‘tail’ that’s more orange-red than scarlet. On a dull afternoon at Wrenthorpe on Friday, it was doing what drones do best, hanging around taking a break on our friends’ herbaceous border alongside another equally unmotivated male.