The overwhelming majority of research on wild bumble bees has focused on the social colony stage. Nest-founding queens in the early season are difficult to study because incipient nests are challenging to find in the wild, and the foundress queen's flight period is very short relative to the entire

1. Animal site fidelity structures space-use, population demography, and ultimately gene flow. Understanding the adaptive selection for site fidelity patterns provides a mechanistic understanding to both spatial and population processes. This can be achieved by linking space-use with environmental v