Vestal cuckoo bee

Chris had his final exam last week, and today I drove up to Sheffield to collect him. Normally we can fit everything in the smaller car, but he's moving into a new house in the autumn, so absolutely everything had to come home, necessitating use of the ancient Galaxy, which fortunately behaved impeccably.

I arrived at his door at 11am, only to find him still in the shower! He had managed to pack most of his stuff (how do they accumulate so much?) and once we'd transferred his belongings to the car we set to and cleaned his room in the hope that he'll get most of his deposit back. I'd been given instructions to bring a hoover (theirs had broken!), spray cleaner, cloths and polyfilla, as well as coffee to keep us going! He did most of the cleaning while I filled holes in the wall caused by furniture moving and an angry outburst. Chris has always been inclined to punch walls when irritated, and the one in his room just wasn't strong enough to cope with it!

We finally set off for Peterborough just before 3pm, and had a good journey home. After a cup of tea I headed into the garden to seek a blip. I spotted this vestal cuckoo bee Bombus vestalis gathering nectar from our Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum'. They get the name cuckoo bee because they are nest parasites of the buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris.

You can tell a cuckoo bee from a true bumblebee by the absence of pollen baskets on the hind legs, as they get their hosts to do all the hard work of pollen gathering. They also have a softer buzz and a sparser furry coat.

After emerging from hibernation during April the mated female seeks out a small nest of the buff-tailed bumblebee with a few workers. The female sneaks into the nest and hides while it acquires the nest scent. It may then dominate, or kill, the host queen and takes over the egg laying for the colony. These eggs produce only new vestal cuckoo bee females and males, which take no part in the running of the colony, all work being done by the host workers.