James said:
They don't have stores as such - only food for the larvae.
Bumblebees are  seasonal, relying on the availability of nectar and pollen
to build up a
colony sufficiently strong to make new queens and drones for the next
season's colonies.

Like James I have looked at a few bumble bee colonies in late summer and we
even made up a couple bumble bee observation hives for our state fair. In
all cases almost no stored honey was found.

What do the Bumble bees do with the nectar they gather as they always seem
busy on flowers and coming and going from the nest?

On any  given summer day in our area many can be found going from flower to
flower and we found bumble bee nests with around 300 bees in late summer.

 Looks like at least a small surplus would be gathered.

To simplify things most nest cavities we looked at were to small for storage
space but I did remove a very large nest (number of bumble bees) from a
roof and although a huge amount of space for expansion was available when I
removed the 4x8 sheet covering the nest only a typical bumble bee size nest
was found (late summer and around 250-300 bees) and only a very small amount
of stored honey and pollen.

Bob

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