Bug FAQNevada Bumble Bee
Bombus nevadensis · Order: Hymenoptera · Family: Apidae
The Nevada bumble bee is a medium-sized bumble bee with queens about 20 mm long, workers 17 mm and males 14 mm. Females have an all-black head while males show yellow on the face and top of the head; the thorax is yellow with a possible black spot and the first three abdominal segments are yellow. It lives in open prairies and meadows, nests underground, and feeds on a variety of flowers such as milkvetches, thistles and clovers.
Source: Wikipedia
How to recognize it
Females have a completely black head; males have yellow on the face and top of the head.
Source: Wikipedia
Size
Queens are about 20 mm long, workers about 17 mm, and males about 14 mm. The bee has a long tongue and a short, dense coat of hair.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it lives
It prefers open areas such as prairies and meadows. Nests are usually built underground.
Source: Wikipedia
Life cycle
The black and gold bumble bee (Bombus auricomus) is sometimes treated as a subspecies of this bee, but genetic and morphological data support it as a separate species.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it comes from
It is native to North America, ranging from Alaska to California, east to Wisconsin, and also found in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico.
Source: Wikipedia
Lookalikes
The black and gold bumble bee (Bombus auricomus) looks similar and is sometimes considered a subspecies, though evidence shows it is a distinct species.
Source: Wikipedia
Where it is found in the US
Recorded in 27 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota.
Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.
Source: GBIF
Status: native in North America; native in Canada; native in United States. Source: iNaturalist
Months it is reported in the US
Source: GBIF
More photos
Same family (Apidae)
Sources
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_nevadensis
Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · ITIS · Wikipedia
Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.