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 was at home by myself today so I spent most of it writing up a new page, summarising key observations from all our bumblebee studies. There are a lot and although they are all contained in this blog somewhere, you'd never be able to piece them together. So the page is long overdue.

It's again been a showery day on and off, so the bumbles have been thwarted. This girl spent most of the day in the entrance stopping the others from leaving (yes, even the big queen!):

Our two little indoor invalids (secretly I'm calling them pinky & perky, but they're not official names) are doing fine, drinking plenty and general mooching along fine:

I did attempt some macro photography using my zoom lens and macro extension tube - here's the setup:

It turned out to be completely useless (which is why they invented macro lenses), though it did but my tripod through its paces (that kit is HEAVY) and momentarily scared me. ☺

Despite best intentions I got no chance at all to review CCTV so I have a massive backlog of 5 days. Eek. but I kept an eye on the nest - really not a lot happening new today.

Tonight however, this bunch of bees have gone nuts over re-arranging the bedding under the camera. Don't know why, and I certainly wish I knew how they co-ordinated themselves on it and what they want to achieve. So, I've been taking lots of before and after shots:

"before""after"I'm trying to work out which pots are sealed - because some are empty and not sealed (centre bottom) and some are honey filled (easy to see with the catchlights). The seal pots will contain eggs and so may hatch at a later date. So, one theory is they are dragging the bedding to cover the sealed pots and keep them warm (30C). Just going to have to keep an eye one what happens under that bedding over the coming days / weeks!

Nik Sargent

Nik Sargent

Bumblebee Project Home / Blog

Nik Sargent

Introduction

Insights

Blog:

Changing the bedding

Nik Sargent