Bombus pascuorum

It is almost entirely pale ginger-brown, usually with patches of black hair on the abdomen and sometimes on the thorax.

It is one of four brown bumblebees in the British Isles and can be very hard to identify in the field; records are best based on males, whose genitalia are diagnostic.

Adults are about 10 to 18 mm long: queens about 16 to 18 mm, workers 10 to 15 mm and males 13 to 14 mm.

Beyond Britain and Ireland it occurs in all but the most northerly parts of Europe and Asia as far as China, but not in tropical or subtropical Asia.

It uses a great variety of habitats and is a regular inhabitant of gardens.

Queens emerge from hibernation between March and June, workers are present from April, and males and new queens fly from July to October.

Nests are fairly small, with 60 to 150 workers.

The life of a nest is remarkably long, with workers still present in September and October in some cases.

Nests are built above ground in tall but open grassland, under hedges and in piles of plant litter.

It is associated with flowers that have longer corollas, especially the pea family and the figwort family.

It is one of the carder bees, which gather moss and dry grass to make a covering for the nest.

In a genetic study on arable farmland in the UK, its estimated maximum foraging range was the shortest of four bumblebee species compared, about 449 m from the nest.

Its nests are attacked by the cuckoo bumblebee Bombus campestris, a social parasite.

In Britain it may well be less frequent than it used to be, yet it is currently extending its range northward and has recently reached Orkney.