Buff Tail bumblebee (Bombus terretris) on Verbena Bonariensis greeting card, blank inside, 7x5” 300gsm textured card with brown Kraft envelope.

The Buff Tail bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) is one of the most common and widespread bees in the UK and is one of the ‘Big 7’ species. In cities in the south of the UK this bumblebee is even becoming active in the winter, particularly favouring Mahonia bushes to feed on. The Buff Tail is a large variety of bumblebee, with the queens being especially impressive, and interestingly only the queens have an easily recognisable ‘buff’ coloured tail - the worker and male bees are much harder to distinguish from White-tailed bumblebees. As you can see from my painting, this is most likely a worker or male buff-tailed bumblebee feeding on a Verbena Bonariensis flower captured in this wonderful photograph by my brother-in-law’s father David Griffiths. My thanks go to Dave for the incredible quality of his photograph and his permission to use it for a painting and greeting card.