Bombus (Thoracobombus) fervidus (Fabricius, 1798)

Bombus (Thoracobombus) fervidus View in CoL (Fabricius, 1798)

Golden Northern Bumble Bee

Notes: This species has been listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List (Hatfield et al. 2015b). It has also been designated a “Species of Greatest Conservation Need” (SGCN) in New Hampshire (New Hampshire Fish and Game Department 2015) and Hardy et al. (2021) report it is possibly on the decline in Vermont. Recent floral preference trials by K. A. Stoner (unpublished) at the CAES experimental farm in Hamden (New Haven County) detected this species in 2019, 2020, and 2021 visiting Zinnia violacea and Zinnia marylandica . Other floral records in Connecticut include morning glory ( Ipomoea sp. ), golden currant ( Ribes aureum ), lilac ( Syringa sp. ), white clover ( Trifolium repens ), common thistle ( Circium vulgare ), and gill-over-the-ground ( Glechoma hederacea [as Nepeta hederacea ]). This species has been found in Connecticut in agricultural land, sandy areas, powerline ROW, a limestone quarry, town parks, and on the grounds of an urban seaside university. Richardson et al. (2018) found B. fervidus to be positively associated with grasslands and cultivated crops. This species is still found routinely in New York including New York City (https://www. inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=48&subview=table&taxon_id=52774) in addition to Connecticut (https:// www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=49&subview=table&taxon_id=52774), so regional trends in its status remain unclear.