Insect and Spider Identification: CLOSED: Large black and white bumble bee.., 1 by bonitin

bonitin wrote:
Your B.vestalis of the 21 rst of April looks bald on the first section of its abdomen or would it have lost its hairs, which is rather strange as it probably just emerged and should be young. The hairs do look shorter than from B.bohemicus.

are the second and last pict from the same bee? This one really has longer hairs on its collar and abdomen, so could very well be B.bohemicus.
The second does look like mine, except the faded brownish hairs at the top of the abdomen and the bottom of the thorax. When I look closer at mine there is also a faint suggestion of some brown hairs at the joint of the abdomen and thorax but not as clear as in yours.
The face of mine also looks quite short

I'm also confused with mine having no yellow hairs at all, not the collar (although in some pics it has a very faint bronish hue) nor has it yellow patches at the sides of the white tail section.. Even if the yellow had faded one would still expect a very faint yellow..
But here is one that looks the same without yellow;

http://popgen.unimaas.nl/~jlindsey/commanster/Insects/Bees/S...


I think mine could be a male B.bohemicus as I discovered some black hairs at the tail end.

From the Scottish site: "Males are difficult. They are like the female but the white or yellowy tail ends with some black hairs."

Not very sharp but the black hairs are noticeable