New colonies are situated in existing holes in the ground, and like many Vespine Wasps Bumble Bees like abandoned rodent nests best. There are 19 species of true Bumble Bee Bombus in Britain and 6 species of Social Parasites Psythirus . A Bumble Bee learns how to forage efficiently through trial and error. Their first efforts are generally slow and clumsy often wasting time and effort on inefficient collection techniques and visiting nutritionally worthless flowers. However within a few hours the young bee has acquired the habit of 'majoring' on one prevalent and valuable resource while 'minoring' on one or more less rich or available resources.
Experienced foragers show a similar learning pattern when changing to a new 'major' species.
This habit of 'Majoring and Minoring' was first described by a guy called Hienrich in 1976, he also showed that the choice of 'major' flower for the day was made by the individual bee with bees from the same colony majoring on different flowers on a given day. This flexible foraging technique allows Bumble Bees to take advantage of temporary abundances of one flower species while keeping aware of changes in quality or abundance of other resources. It also allows the bees to take advantage of the fact that different flowers produce the bulk of their nectar crop at different times of day. Bumble Bees will return to the position occupied by a useful flower even if the flower has been removed. They also use a variety of non-visual clues such as taste and odour.