Bumblebees' worn-out wings

 By this stage in the year a lot of bumblebees are reaching the end of their lives. They take longer to warm up after cold nights and begin active feeding, and there are fewer flowers available so nectar can be harder to find. 

Like many, these have lost quite of lot of their fur and what remains has become sun-bleached. A close look at their wings reveals a lot of wear-and-tear, with fraying at their tips where they have been beating and up to 200 times per second and made contact with hard objects. It's said that the average life of a worker bumblebee is about one month. These are simply worn out, from provisioning colonies that are now in steep decline; soon only the new queens will be left, to crawl away into secure hibernation sites until spring arrives and the whole cycle begins again.