The common carder bee is a ginger-brown, long-tongued bumblebee and one of the most abundant bumblebees across Europe and temperate Asia. Its long tongue suits deep-corolla flowers, and it shows a marked preference for the mint family (Lamiaceae — including lavender, sage, and dead-nettles) and the pea family (Fabaceae) for nectar and pollen. Unlike many bumblebees, it usually nests at or near the ground surface, combing — "carding" — moss and dry grass into a fibrous dome, though it also uses old mouse burrows and other cavities. It is one of the longest-season bumblebees, with workers active from spring into autumn, making it a key late-season pollinator in gardens and flowery grassland.

Nectar plants · 6

Found across most of Europe from northern Iberia and the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and eastward through temperate Asia; expanding northward in Britain, and largely absent from the high Arctic, the far south of the Balkans, southern Italy, and southern Iberia.