Introduction

Our Bumblebee nesting project started in 2011 as a bit of conservation to help the declining bumblebee population by encouraging one (or more) to nest in boxes in our garden. We discovered it's not easy, and our project quickly evolved into an ongoing and intimate study of these amazing creatures, which we are sharing here for the benefit of all.

Amongst our unexpected successes are:

A short clip in the film "Britain in a Day" by Ridley Scott (Broadcast by the BBC in 2012)

Featured in Wired Magazine for creating the World's first tweeting bumblebees

Winner of the Internet of Things award 2012 - Environmental Category

Oldest recorded age we can find of a worker Bufftailed Bumblebee - at 103 days

We've discovered, observed and collected a sizeable amount of real-world data, still being analysed and written up (Overview here). Additionally,

We've sourced several live colonies from commercial providers and have been looking after numerous disabled bees indoors.

We've learnt to recognise individual bees, spot specific/individual behaviour patterns

We measured efficiency and can predict some of their behaviour triggers.

We have some CCTV cameras pointing at the nestboxes and inside!

You can also follow BeeBoxALula on twitter where our bumblebees tweet live for themselves!

Insights

We're also using tech to monitor the lives of our bumblebees - visual, audio, temperature, sunlight, weather. We can see how the environment impacts their behaviour and understand, capture and share the marvels of their secret lives.

As a species under great threat, we've brought the critical study of Bumblebees into the Multimedia age and revealed intriguing and new insights based on direct observation.

it's been a busy few days on the bee project, the main activities have been:

collecting our used hamster-litter/bedding
ordering, "kitting out" and installing a second nest box in the main garden
keeping on top of all the new bee-friendly plants we've bought
overhauling/changing the camera technology we are using, so that we can have a camera inside the nest box
trunking the video wiring under the path
installing some shelving over nest box 2 so we can surround it with plenty of suitable plants
tidying up the tech indoors; it was starting to look like an explosion in a CCTV factory!
improving the irrigation system to incorporate some of our new heathers
adding some pollen outside the nestbox

After our lack of success with Bee5 (trying to get her to enter the box herself) we decided on a change of strategy, which was to extend the fascia of the entrance so that we could 'dock' our capture pot directly to the box and so bumblebum could escape directly into the nest box.

We used some cardboard to extend the entrance fascia and our wizard caught another red-tail.

Bee6 - Redtail

We introduced her to the new entrance and she when straight into the nestbox. Result!

new entrance fascia

This seemed to be a reasonable unstressful maneouvre for all concerned.

Better still, with our new in-box camera technology we could see her moving about a little in the box. She was free to come and go, but she stayed in the box for almost 2 hours while we observed, by which time she would need to bed down. So, she is in the box for the night, all of her own choosing. This is the most excited and positive we have felt so far. Just hope she likes it and stays.

I will write a full article on the new camera tech - but suffice to say it is awesome to be able to see inside the box and also to hear inside there. The outside world seems so loud! Apart from the kids screaming and cars thundering by, we could even hear a honey bee outside on the heather, buzzing around. So, even when the picture is a bit dark, we are hopeful of hearing activity in the nest.

Our 2nd nesting site in the back garden - under construction

Nik Sargent

Nik Sargent

Bumblebee Project Home / Blog

Nik Sargent

Introduction

Insights

Blog:

A Grand Entrance

Nik Sargent