Reddit reviews Bumblebees: Behaviour, Ecology, and Conservation (Oxford Biology)

Sorry if my post sounded rude, it was not intentional, I shouldn't post late at night.

I have worked as an entomologist specialising in pollinators in the UK for nearly 10 years, and I have never heard of a bumblebee queen surviving more than one colony life cycle. This is very interesting. I've just had a look through some of my books (this one, this one, and this one) and they all state that bumblebee queens don't survive their colony, the latter book suggesting an average lifespan of about 6 months for Bombus terrestris. Perhaps the longer lifespans which you refer to is something specific to a small number of atypical species found outside of Europe? Somewhere sub-tropical perhaps, where the pressures relating to the onset of winter are not present. Do you know of any specific examples in the literature? I did a quick google search and everything that came up says the same thing: "annual lifecycle" and "old queen dies before winter". However, when I switched to the suggested search "how long do queen bumble bees live", the first result is: "All being well, a honey bee queen could live for 3 to 4 years, as long as she is free from disease. This is much longer than bumblebee queens or the solitary bee species." So perhaps you saw the 3-4 years bit (which was bolded) and understandably thought that it referred to the organism you were actually searching about?

I think perhaps your experience as a honeybee keeper has confused our conversation a bit. I suspect we are each more familiar a different type of bee! Although I am working on a honeybee project at the moment which is rectifying the gap in my knowledge :)