About Bombus huntii Greene, 1860
Bombus huntii Greene, 1860 is a species of bumblebee, commonly known as the Hunt bumblebee or Hunt's bumblebee. It is native to western North America, ranging through western Canada and the United States east to Manitoba and Minnesota, and south through Mexico to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. Its full genome was recently sequenced as part of the Beenome100 project. This bumblebee inhabits desert scrub, prairies, and meadows. In the southern portion of its range in Mexico, it lives in pine ecosystems and can be found at high elevations, including the summits of tall volcanoes. It is active during summer and fall across most of its range, and flies for most of the year in Mexico. It nests underground in colonies that include a queen, workers, males, and new reproductive queens. Colonies only survive for one year, and only mated queens overwinter to produce new colonies the following season. Food plants visited by Bombus huntii include rabbitbrush, thistles, sunflowers, penstemons, phacelias, currants, rudbeckias, and clovers. While this species has undergone population declines, it remains one of the more common bumblebee species in western North America. It is susceptible to certain viruses that infect honey bees, specifically Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Deformed Wing Virus (DWV). Experimental research indicates that this and other North American native bumblebee species are efficient pollinators of crop plants like tomatoes, and that commercial rearing of this species would be a viable alternative to introducing non-native bee species for crop pollination.
