Queens appear between early April and mid-May, and workers appear at the end of April/early May to mid-October. Young queens and drones can be found from mid-August to late October. When queens search for suitable places to nest, they fly just above the vegetation, for example on forest edges, investigating cavities such as holes in the ground or niches in dead wood and grass. The
nests can be constructed above or under ground, preferably in old mouse nests, but also in bird nests, barns, and sheds. Nest-building proceeds as follows. The queen collects moss and grass to form a small, hollow sphere whose walls are partly bonded with wax and sealed off. Within this is formed a large bowl of brown wax of about 5 mm in diameter, which is filled with
pollen. Thereafter, five to 15
eggs are deposited, and the cell closed. Another 20-mm-high cup is then filled with nectar, thus serving as its own food reserve for bad weather days. After three to five days, the larvae hatch to feed on the pollen. After about a week, the larvae are mature. The adult worker bees, owing to the initially poor supply situation, are relatively small, reaching only about half the body length of the
queen and lacking functioning ovaries. Later-hatching bees are much larger. The additional nesting and brood care is dedicated solely to the queen, which no longer leaves the nest. From August, rarely before, the first fully developed females, together with drones, are ready. Drones hatch from unfertilized eggs. In August the
B. pascuorum nest, with a diameter of up to , reaches a maximum population size from 60 to 150 individuals. Shortly after this peak, the population quickly decreases. With the queen the entire nest dies, usually in September. Occasionally, individuals survive until October/November. Only the last-hatched females survive, to mate with males. Then they fly in search of a safe place for hibernation. == Foraging ==