Bumble Bee Mating

I suppose I seldom considered how bees mate, nor how different colony bees might be to solitary. These bumble bees are hard at it, and I don't mean gathering pollen. It went on for an awesomely long time, and comments may have been made by a wife somewhere nearby. While the queen didn't exactly look like it was an earth-moving event, the fella was practically incandescent with wings buzzing madly as he held tight even when they both rolled down the earth bank into the newly dug soil - which is probably what attracted them in the first place. So, that's the bee part of the birds and the bees; now look up.