The buff-tailed bumble bee, also known as the humble-bee or large earth humble-bee (Bombus terrestris) is named for the queen's coloration - she has a buff-colored abdomen. This bee is native to Europe, coastal north Africa, and west and central Asia. The buff-tailed bumble bee pollinates fruit trees, raspberries, and blueberries, as well as greenhouse-grown tomatoes.
Buff-tailed bumble bees are black with a dull yellow band in front of the wings and across the middle of the body. The queens have a yellow thorax and buff colored abdomen. Males have a distinctive yellow nose.
- Bombus terrestris and lucorum, Laura Brodie, University of Aberdeen, http://www.bumblebee.org/
- Importation of Non-Native Bumble Bees into North America: Potential Consequences of Using Bombus terrestris and Other Non-Native Bumble Bees for Greenhouse Crop Pollination in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, K. Winter, L. Adams, R. Thorp, D. Inouye, L. Day, J. Ascher, and S.Buchmann, North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, August 2006
- Subgenus Bombus Latreille, 1802 (Apidae: Apinae: Bombini), Thorp, R. W., and M. D. Shepherd. 2005. Profile: Subgenus Bombus In: Shepherd, M. D., D. M. Vaughan, and S. H. Black (Eds). Red List of Pollinator Insects of North America. CD-ROM Version 1 (May 2005).Portland, OR: The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
- A century of advances in bumble bee domestication and the economic and environmental aspects of its commercialization for pollination, H. H. W. Velthuis, and A. van Doorn, Apidologie, vol. 37, no. 4, 2006, pp. 421-451.
