A rusty bumblebee collects pollen and nectar from a flower.

Dan Mullen, via Flickr, Creative Commons License) Bumblebees are large, fuzzy insects with stubby wings.

They are larger than bees but do not produce much honey.

However, they are very important pollinators.

Without them, two-thirds of the world's crops rely on animals to transfer pollen between male and female flowers, said ecologist Rachel Winfree, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at Rutgers University.

Many animals are pollinators, including birds, bats and butterflies, but "bees are undoubtedly the most important in most ecosystems," she said in a 2009 article in National Wildlife Magazine.

When other animals pollinate, bumblebees are particularly good at it.

Their wings beat 130 times or more per second, and the beating combined with their large bodies vibrates the flowers until they release their pollen, which is called buzz pollination, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

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Buzz pollination helps plants produce more fruit.

Size According to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), there are more than 255 species of bumblebees, so bumblebees can come in a variety of sizes.

The largest is the Queen of Greater Bombay, which can grow up to 1.6 inches (4 cm) long.

According to Scientific American, this is three to four times the size of the American bumblebee. It is often said that the bumblebee has no regard for aerodynamics and should not fly.

However, a recent study solved the mystery and showed how the tiny wings keep bees aloft.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2005, used high-speed photography to show that bumblebees flap their wings back and forth, rather than up and down.

The wing sweep is a bit like the partial rotation of a helicopter propeller that "kind of sucks," researcher and professor Michael Dickinson, an expert on biology and insect flight at the University of Washington, told Live Science in a 2011 article.

However, the angle to the wing also creates vortices in the air, like a small hurricane.

The eyes of these little hurricanes have lower pressure than the surrounding air, so keeping these air vortices above the wings helps the bees stay aloft.

[Related: Explanation: The Physics of Bumblebee Flight] Bumblebee Nest.

(Ante Van Oystaeyen) With so many species in their habitats, it’s no surprise that bumblebees can be found all over the world.

For example, the largest bumblebees are found in Argentina and Chile, and the rusty bumblebees are found in the United States and Canada.

Bumblebees often nest close to the ground - under piles of wood, dead leaves and compost heaps - and even have underground habits in abandoned rodent tunnels. Bumblebees are among the most social creatures in the animal kingdom.

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A group of bumblebees is called a swarm.

Colonies can hold 50 to 500 individuals, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

A dominant female, called a queen, rules the colony.

Other bees serve her, either collecting food or caring for the developing larvae.

In late autumn, the entire colony died except the queen.

She hibernates underground for several months and starts a new colony in the spring.

Diet Bumblebees eat nectar and pollen.

Sugary nectar provides bees with energy, while pollen provides bees with protein, according to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

According to the Animal Diversity Web (ADW), they make honey by chewing pollen and saliva.

They feed honey to the queen bee and the developing colony.

The offspring of the queen bee is the mother of all the bees in the colony.

After emerging from hibernation, the queen will find food and a good place to nest.