Nature Study #27: Bees

We found these bees in our neighbor's flower garden. The first photo shows the honeybee, and the second photo has the bumblebee.

Thou, in sunny solitudes,

Rover of the underwoods,

The green silence dost replace

With thy mellow, breezy bass.

-Emerson

One interesting bit of information we have learned about these fuzzy bees, as opposed to their cousins the honeybee, is that the bumblebees 

"do not provide enough honey to sustain the whole colony during the winter. Only the mother bees, or queens as they are called, survive the cold season."
-Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, pg. 389.