Talk:American bumblebee

Writing changes

At the beginning when you describe the range, it seems like it could be better organized. It's a little hard to follow given in the "to...from" format when there are so many locations. There were some formatting things that looked like they had been left by a copy and paste situation. I would suggest considering a different subheading name than "Morphology" as it seems like that section delves a bit deeper than basic morphology. However, this may be due to my lack of previous research on the species. I would also suggest that, if you're going to describe the range twice, either use different sentences and structure for one of them or try to be more specific the second time you mention it. Just something that prevents you from repeating the same information. Other than these edits, it looks great! Flynnt2013 (talk) 02:11, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

In general, I think the species should be described in the singular rather than the plural. It seems that the other wikipedia articles are structured that way.

"Its name is derived from the former Latin name B. americanorum."

I don't think derived is the correct verb. You could try "Formally B. americanorum, ...." or "Originally classified/somebetterword as B. americanorum in someyear by someguy,..."

"Specifically, Bombus pensylvanicus ranges in Eastern Great Plains..." You don't need 'specifically' here. Also, 'in' should be 'from'.

"Bombus pensylvanicus was once the most prevalent species throughout the southern United States, but has recently decreased significantly" Maybe "Once the most prevalent bumblebee in the southern US, populations of B. pen have decreased signific in recent years" or something.

"Although its name suggests" Should clarify common name.

"Bombus pensylvanicus is characterized as a long-tongued, widespread species with a contrast of lighter color in the southwest from sonorus and darker color pattern in the east from pensylvanicus."

This can be 3 sentences. 1 long tongue, 2 wide spread, 3 colors in N and S

"The general nest structure of the species utilize groups of hay or long grass to create sheltered nests above ground" Please don't use utilize. Use is fine. "groups of" is implied with "hay or long grass" and is unnecessary.

"In terms of characteristics within the hive: a larger queen (22-26 mm) compared to worker (13-19 mm), males have an outward penis valve head with a broad banana shape."

You could say "The queen is 22-26 mm long while the worker is only 13-19mm long. Drones have a banana penis." Don't actually say drones have a banana penis.

I'm editing your article for commas and general grammatical mistakes.

_Phonox Classic

Grammar/Writing/Hyperlink edits

Hello!

I made a few grammar and syntax corrections to your article, and for those sentences I did not correct I have some suggestions. Below are some examples.

Under "Description and Identification": "Bombus pensylvanicus is characterized as a long-tongued, widespread species with a contrast of lighter color in the southwest, from sonorus, and darker color pattern in the east, from pensylvanicus." This might just be me, but I think the structure of this sentence is a little odd. I didn't change this because I was afraid I might alter its meaning.

When listing "specific characteristics", you mentioned "yellow thoracic dorsum anteriorly, posterior black,...". I rearranged the descriptor words and nouns just to improve the flow of the sentence.

You mentioned a fact about using "hay or long grass" to build nests twice within the article. There was some redundancy within the article as well as within the sentence itself, so I deleted that sentence from this section and edited it in the "Description" section.

There were also a couple of misused words or tenses of verbs, which I have fixed as well.

Many times the genus or species names were not italicized. This is important when citing scientific literature, so I italicized those for you. I also added hyperlinks to certain species/genus names or terminology that the reader might want more information about (such as "introgression", "haplodiploidy" and the "Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium").

When introducing a researcher's name into the article, I would suggest you mention their full name first (and if possible the publication year of their work). Then continue to use their last name in reference to their research.

All in all, your article was well-organized and the content was thoroughly cited! Good job!
Roohi.byakod (talk) 19:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Review and Editing

This is a well-written, well-structured, and information-heavy article. I made some minor changes by adding hyperlinks throughout the article where I thought necessary. These hyperlinks were added throughout the taxonomy section for each level of classification. I also added a hyperlink for Bombus impatiens, which previously had not been italicized either. One concern I have is that the range map given on the right does not match the distribution described in the article. The article states that the distribution includes the desert west and places in Oregon, California, and Mexico. However, none of these regions appear on the range map. Additionally, the declining status of the bee was mentioned multiple times throughout the paper but not reasons were given for the decline. Is it destruction of habitat that is leading to this? My last critique is that I found the section heading “Human Importance” misleading, as the subsection underneath does not actually describe any bee-human interaction or relevance. I took the heading out and just made gene flow and decline its own section, but would recommend possibly adding information about the species use in agriculture if you want to discuss human importance. Kjkozak (talk) 04:04, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Recommendations

As a general comment, I personally think it flows better if you change Bomvus pensylvanicus to B. pensylvanicus for repeated naming throughout a paragraph because once you know the genus, there's no reason to keep repeating the full name. I changed it for a few of them.

For specific changes: 1. The third sentence of the Introduction paragraph, which talks about its distribution is contradictory to the first sentence where you say that it’s found in eastern North America. This is also contradicted by the photo on the right side that shows the distribution. Additionally, the sentence itself is wordy and hard to follow. You repeat this same sentence in the “Distribution and Habitat” section as well. 2. I changed the last sentence of the “Taxonomy and Phylogenetic” section, but I wasn’t exactly sure what you were trying to say about the intermediates. 3. “Bombus pensylvanicus is characterized as a long-tongued, widespread species with a contrast of lighter color in the southwest, from sonorus, and darker color pattern in the east, from pensylvanicus.” This sentence is very confusing. I tried to fix it, but it wasn’t clear what you were trying to say. 4. As a whole, the wording, organization, and sentence flow of “Description and Identification” is confusing. For example, the second sentence is hard to follow. 5. For the first sentence of “Morphology,” who is Cameron? If its a scientist, maybe consider mentioning the publication and a first name. 6. Towards the end of “Morphology” you talk about the Missouri B. pensylvanicus and Arizona B. sonorous, but there's no mention before that of either of these specific locations. 7. Last sentence of “Colony” is confusing. I tried to fix it, but I wasn’t sure about the exact process and didn’t want to add wrong information. 8. In “Parasite” saying the wasp is “Braconidae: syntretus sp.” is very confusing and makes following the sentence difficult. If you can’t find a hyperlink to the specific animal, then you shouldn’t add the details. Maybe adding just the Genus/Family is helpful, but the format stated above is kind of confusing. 9. For “Mimicry,” if you’re going to give the family and give an example of a species, you should be a little clearer. Instead of just saying “(Sphingidae such as Hemaris thetis)” you should say (of the family Sphingidae, such as the species…) or even use hyperlinks and avoid adding the wordy names, if possible. 11. For “Resource Partitioning,” there’s a lot of repetition of the same words, making reading and comprehending it difficult. Maybe it's necessary in order to make sense, but I wasn't sure so I didn't want to delete anything. 12. I fixed some spelling mistakes and reworded a few sentences to make them a little more clear. Be careful on using past tense, a few times you switched from past to present within the same sentence. I also added some hyperlinks.

Overall, I thought it was very thorough and well-cited. Good job!

-Sarah

Pictures! Pictures of your Bee!

You should definitely add a few pictures of your bee to your article. As many as you can find, especially if you can tie them into your headings.

PhonoxClassic (talk) 23:34, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Peer review

Hi!

Your article is very well-written and well researched! I found some minor grammatical errors throughout your article that I changed myself without altering the meaning of anything (hopefully).

Here are some examples of changes I made to the article:

"Bombus pensylvanicus is part of the order Hymenoptera..."
"...is a part of" sounds a bit weird to me, so I changed it to "belongs to" wherever I could.

"...in comparison to its similar species sonorus, B. pensylvanicus..."
I added the "B." before "sonorus" and italicized it all.

“Though there is likely individual variation in homing ability and the time it takes a bee to find its way back to the nest.”
This sentence doesn't make sense to me, but I didn't make any changes because I feared I would alter its meaning.

I suggest that you use the full names of researchers and scientists when referring to their work (at least once) before using just their last name, and maybe even mention the study or experiment that resulted in certain findings. Although I couldn’t find many pictures myself, I would suggest that more pictures be added to the article as well.

Overall, great job!

Roohi.byakod (talk) 22:23, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Orbiting Pair-Swarms -- Bombus or Xylocopa ?

I moved in early May to a town in west central Pennsylvania. Around every wooden telephone- or electric pole in this town there orbited multiple pairs of vertically-related "bumblebees", always moving counterclockwise about the pole in a cohesive but ever-shifting swarm (much like a school of fish). By month-end their visible numbers declined from up to a dozen pairs per pole to just occasional lone individuals, so I assume it is seasonal (mating?) behavior. I have never observed such behavior in bumblebees before and am puzzled to the point of distraction. Were it not for their large size (45 - 50mm), barrel-like conformation and broad/transparent/compound wings, I'd be tempted to assume they are Carpenter Bees. The Wikipedia article on genus Bombus says some species like pennsylvanicus can "detect both the presence and the pattern of electric fields on flowers, which occur due to atmospheric electricity", and so might be attracted & confused by the EM fields around these poles. Unlikely, as they show no attraction to metal poles of the same function. And there is this: after the orbiting swarms disappeared, I saw a lone individual (smaller by 5-10mm than those I'd seen -- female?) crawl into one of the many holes in a pole, so both Bumble and Carpenter seem to have strikes against them.

Anybody out there know if these strangely-behaving bees are Bombus or Xylocopa? Or for that matter, whether the orbiting "fish school" behavior is standard or anomalous?

67.165.91.134 (talk) 17:11, 3 June 2016 (UTC)