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.

Yet more infrastructure changes this Sunday. Really we are just taking every possible opportunity to create a nesting environment that a queen may explore.

So, I added some upturned flower-pots (with some tubing underneath) under a mound of cut grass.

You can see I've designed some very obvious "holes" - created by cutting the top of a 2 litre soft drink bottle, feeding the tube into it, and part filling them with the grass. The contrast should make them easy to spot.

Next, I simply just turned one of our blue plastic boxes over and did the same trick with the tube. We've noticed some queens being attracted to the blue (stands to reason, as they are attracted to ultraviolet).

I was also delighted that a load of tubing (off eBay, of course) arrived. This is 3cm diameter"cable tidy" and it will be used simply to keep the CCTV cables tidy and safe (and us inhabitants for that matter).

I noticed also at dusk just how "fluorescent" our Hi Viz flags were, so just a quick picture of those. No wonder the bumbles are attracted to them!!

Nik Sargent

Nik Sargent

Bumblebee Project Home / Blog

Nik Sargent

Introduction

Insights

Blog:

Going Potty

Nik Sargent