e can feed themselves. Conversely, "pollen-storers" store pollen in separate wax pots and feed it to the larvae in the same fashion as nectar. Bumble bees are incapable of trophallaxis (direct transfer of food from one bee to another) which is common in other hymenoptera such as ants.
After the emergence of the first or second group of workers, workers take over the task of foraging and the queen spends most of her time laying eggs and caring for larvae. The colony grows progressively larger and at some point will begin to produce males and new queens. The point at which this occurs varies among species and is heavily dependent on resource availability and environmental factors. Unlike the workers of more advanced social insects, bumblebee workers are not physically reproductively sterile and are able to lay haploid eggs that develop into viable male bumble bees. Only fertilized queens can lay diploid eggs that mature into workers and new queens.
Early in the colony cycle, the queen bumblebee compensates for potential reproductive competition from workers by suppressing their egg-laying by way of physical aggression and pheromonal signals. Thus, the queen will usually be the mother of all of the first males laid. Workers eventually begin to lay males later in the season when the queen's ability to suppress their reproduction diminishes. The reproductive competition between workers and the queen is one reason that bumble bees are considered "primitively social insects".
New queens and males leave the colony after maturation. Males in particular are forcibly driven out by the workers. Away from the colony, the new queens and males live off nectar and pollen and spend the night on flowers or in holes. The queens are eventually mated (often more than once) and search for a suitable location for diapause (dormancy). The following season they will form new colonies.
Bumblebees generally visit flowers exhibiting the bee pollination syndrome. They can visit patches of flowers up to 1-2 kilometers from their colony. Bumbl