There are more than 250 species of bumblebee and they are social insects that live in colonies of usually less than 50 bees. Throughout most of their range young bumblebee queen’s mate with males in autumn and then the males all die and the queen goes into diapauses, which is like hibernation but they aren’t just sleeping through the winter. Instead, the development of the eggs in the queen is delayed and won’t begin again till spring. At that time the queen wakes up and finds their perfect place for her colony. Then she builds wax pots for food and stretchy wax cells that she lays fertilized eggs in. The eggs hatch into larvae and the wax cells expand as the larvae grow. The queen works hard gathering pollen and nectar from spring flowers both for herself and for the larvae. She chews a little hole in the wax cells and regurgitates nectar into them. The larvae need both nectar and pollen to grow properly. The larvae go through 4 stages, called instars and become larger with each stage. Then they spin cocoons inside the wax cell and become pupae. The pupae develop into adult female workers and soon the queen will have helpers feeding the young, cleaning the colony, and doing other jobs very much like honey bees. From egg to adult bee can take 5 week during this time only the queen is able to find food, build the colony and feed and care for the larvae. When autumn approaches new queens will be raised as well as male drones. Male bees are created from haploid eggs that were not fertilized the year before.
Himalayan balsam was introduced into the UK in 1839, Himalayan balsam is now a naturalised plant, found especially on riverbanks and in waste places where it has become a problem weed. This plant tolerates low light levels and also shades out other vegetation, so gradually impoverishing habitats by killing off other plants. The flowers are followed by seed pods that open explosively when ripe. Each plant can produce up to 800 seeds and these are dispersed widely as the ripe seedpods shoot their seeds up to 7m (22ft) away
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