Hello Burkhard,
I do not have an answer for your question. However, we are staying at a
cottage near Lenminster on the New Ross Road and I too noted a lot of
bumblebees on Black Knapweed. While I did not observe an individual bee
long enough to duplicate your observation, I did notice that the vaste
majority (perhaps all?) bumblebees I saw on the knapweed were Bombus
tenarius. This leads me to wonder if you were observing the same species? I
also wonder if the answer to some of your questions might be, at least
partially species dependant.
On Sat, Aug 8, 2020, 16:52 Burkhard Plache, <burkhardplache(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Having too much time to sit in the backyard,
I took to observing bumble bees visiting a patch
of Black Knapweed. When following a single bee,
it appears they somehow recall which flowers they
have already visited, and which are new to them.
They seem to nearly never revisit an already visited
flower.
Does somebody on this list know if my observation
is just a fluke, or if it represents known bumblebee
behaviour. If it is typical behaviour, is it known how
they do it (scent, visual, tracking, ...)?
Curious,
Burkhard
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