Op-ed: Don’t kill the queen

By Bob Heath
Volunteer pollinator specialist and professor emeritus of Kent State University

Big, black and buzzing busily about your spring flowers, these bumble bees deserve regal respect. They’re queens in search of a place to build their palace. Actually, they’ll dig their palatial nest in the ground, usually under some dried leaves from last fall. Once they begin to dig their summer nest they also begin to collect pollen, roll it into a ball and lay an egg on it, which will become her first daughters. But these daughters aren’t princesses, they’re more like vassals, female worker bees doing all of the yard work for the queen.