[Pollinator] 2018 aberrant Bombus affinis male from WV

[Droege, Sam]

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> All:

We are presenting some photos of an interesting *Bombus affinis* male found
by Justin DeVault from  AllStar Ecology, who with other folks at AllStar,
on their own time and dollar, have been surveying bumble bees in West
Virginia in 2018.  Good people and a good model.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/44947274694/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/44757694325/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/45621406892/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/30731365257/in/dateposted-public/

All pictures completely public domain, distribute and use as you wish.

After a couple of decades, this is the second specimen for the state.  In
somewhat nearby Mineral County, one was found in 2017 and about 100 miles
away a few more have been found in the mountains of Virginia.  The general
pattern of this residual isolated population (other than one in the
Shenandoah Valley in 2014 (or 2015)) has been high elevations within
openings in heavily wooded general landscapes, with a sub-theme off
thistles and tall yellow composites.  There are more to be found...but
people have to look. Check out the heavy reddish brown band the 4th tergite
of the abdomen ...this is an aberration of the type that shows up in B.
impatiens regularly and at least once before in B. affinis as per Colla et
al.s Bumblebees of North America....

sam

Thistles

My father would wake early and calmly
go about the business of giving himself
cancer. Red, the color itself,
sloshing in the tank behind him,
he'd drive the fencerows all morning,
spraying thistles.
I've always loved thistles
for how they hold their beauty
apart from us,
their purple blossoms
more beautiful for being
pain's fountaining,
like the beauty of the pain of martyrs.
In this way also they are
like those rare creatures,
mountain lions, owls, you
never dream of seeing, much less
touching. Which is why
he had to kill them
from a distance, a spherical mist
hanging in the air, a tongueless
bell of poison. Because who scythes
anymore? I can still see my father  ;
unmasked like an actor backstage,
breathing as deeply
as he ever breathed,
while behind him already they were
beginning to yellow
like old, old annals in a chest
of drawers no one opens anymore.


        - AUSTIN SMITH


-- 
*How Can you Save the Bees if You Don't Even Know Their Names?*
*- Bee*
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