Talk:Bombus terricola

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rasikareddy1019 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Marcus.kwon, Mkfreiler, Chtsai016, Eliseoh, Vsalazar258.

Review and Edits

This article was well organized and featured relevant information on bee behavior, however I made a few changes to improve this page. First, I added a few sentences to the overview to better summarize the behavior and parasites sections of the article. I also added order information to the taxonomy section and rearranged the order. Genus was mentioned before family, which I switched to be more logical. The habitats section has been more accurately renamed “Distribution and Habitat.” I also moved the sentence “Classified as a fungus, Nosema bombi is a small, unicellular parasite that is known to infect bumblebees” to the “Parasites” heading from “Population Decline.” It made more sense to introduce this detail when the specific fungus is first mentioned. Lastly, I made a few word choice edits and added a link for Physocephala. I would also suggest finding the size of the queen to add to the description section, so it can be compared with the workers and males. The “Reproduction” section was also a bit confusing to me, because you claim the colony is male biased but that the sex ratio is 3:1 in favor of workers. Aren’t workers females though? This needs clarification.

Mkfreiler (talk) 23:33, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review

In Taxonomy and Phylogeny, I changed "this bee" to "B. terricola." Mention of the bee should use the scientific/common name or 'It'.

"This species has complex behavioral traits that include adapting to a queenless nest, selective choice of flower visitation, and temperature regulation to fly during cold weather."

This sentence is grammatically incorrect and I changed it accordingly.

Under Colony Cycle, I made several changes to sentence structure. As you named only two of the three phases, I went through your citation to find the name of the third phase. I found that the switch point is not the name of the second phase, but rather the onset of the second phase. I changed the section accordingly. I also found the name for the onset of the third phase, and included it in the section. To better this section, I would explain the behavior and reason behind each phase.

I removed a few redundancies in the article ("B. terricola bees", etc.) but I probably missed several instances, and action should be taken to correct them.

Throughout your article, you use the phrase "it has been shown" and similar qualifiers several times. I would get rid of them, as they only pad the length of the article while weakening it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhonoxClassic (talk • contribs) 22:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hello, I’m an undergrad at Washington University and am editing this for a class assignment. From source 2, are you able to determine other related species that you could mention in the Taxonomy and Phylogeny section? In the Description section, how many segments are there total on the bee? For the Distribution and Habitat section – would you be able to add a distribution map for the bee based on the regions you listed? I’m not sure how to add a distribution map – perhaps you could refer to your group’s Wikipedia expert. I liked your section on “Colony Cycle” – the information about how the solitary queen lays diploid eggs and aspects of sociality involved were interesting!

In your Flower Pollination section, what defines a rewarding or non-rewarding flower? When you discuss their behavior while buzzing, are you meaning to say that they fly clockwise or counterclockwise, or they remain in one place and spin around? For the Parasites section, do you have a source about the Nosema bombi parasite?

I just did some minor phrasing changes to make the flow of the sentence better. I like the conservation status section as it adds some perspective to the article. Great job! Overall there weren’t a lot of areas that I thought needed to be changed. (talk) 23:49, 21 October 2015 (CST)

Peer Review

I found the article to be thorough and to hit on many points about the bee. However, I was slightly confused when the article talked about worker bees. In the Reproduction section, it was stated that worker bees would try to bias the sex ratio to 3:1 to produce more males and thus favoring themselves; however, correct me if I’m wrong in stating that worker bees are usually female, so I don’t understand how producing more males would benefit them. Unless you are referring to the worker’s own male offspring, then yes this section makes sense. It just slightly unclear how it is worded. Other than this, I thought your article was well written! Vsalazar258 (talk) 02:09, 23 October 2015 (UTC)