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.

I'm pleased to say over the weekend I pretty much mastered control of livestream.com, which enables us to make live broadcasts from the cameras in the garden. I also ordered a 4-channel Digital Video Recorder from eBay over the weekend, which will allow control, recording and broadcast of 4 cameras simultaneously. I'll leave the full technical details of the set up till a later post.

There was also plenty of activity from the bee hive. They are obviously multiplying in numbers and the unusually warm weather continues. There were still active bees today at 9pm, even though the light has pretty much gone by then! Mind you, with a field full of (we think) broad beans flowering, who can blame them!?

The other main activity was nursing our less-able-bodied little bee, who my neice Chloe has named Holly. Holly is missing a leg and a wing and has a crooked body - which appears to be the result more of a birth defect rather than an injury. And she is so incredible small (and imperfectly formed) it suggests she may have been premature.

After several attempts to put her back in the hive and finding her crawling on the ground outside (and looking increasingly dishevelled) we decided that was a bad thing - she could barely walk and was probably getting trampled inside the nest; and probably having difficulty feeding.

So now, she is in our high dependency ward - an ice cream tub!

Holly's high-dependency ward

She has flowers and moss and honey water and pollen - which is pretty much all she needs. And lots of space. We keep her indoors overnight for warmth but put her back on top of the nest during the day (in her tub). There's not much else we can do except give her the least traumatic life we can, given that she is unable to fulfil her natural role. It gives us a chance to study her too and I have been able to take some macro photographs.

Holly, starting to regain some strength

Nik Sargent

Nik Sargent

Bumblebee Project Home / Blog

Nik Sargent

Introduction

Insights

Blog:

Keeping a close eye (in more ways than one)

Nik Sargent