Slowing Down?

A couple of days ago we "lost" Lucy (TinylittleBee) under one of the pine cones in our indoor tub. We politely woke her from her "outdoor" slumber and she (perhaps grumpily!) returned to the nestbox. But at least we felt she was in the best place for the night.

It left us wondering why the change in behaviour and whether she was feeling ill or slowing down: After all, when your life expectancy is measured in a few weeks, every day can be like 5 or 10 human years. 

We came down in the morning and once again Lucy was not in the nestbox - clearly she had ventured out during the night/dawn and hidden again. We suspected the pine cones, and there indeed was her small behind poking out, twitching slightly as she breathed. Once again we very gently encouraged her out from the cones and offered her a drink.

Now, you might wonder why we would disturb her and possibly stress her more than necessary and generally we would indeed leave well alone? But there are times when behaviour seems a little bit out of the ordinary and we have to make a judgement on whether to leave her (or any of the bees) alone or check whether she is in trouble - e.g. run out of energy, stuck on her back etc.  Intervention is a last resort, but the whole point of rescuing and saving these otherwise helpless bees was to extend their life and give them some "quality" (if it's possible to measure such a thing in the bee world). Lucy has always been a bit weaker than Holly in general, despite having a full complement of wings and legs; so we tend to be on the lookout for her wellbeing.

We concluded that since Lucy had come out of the nestbox during the night, and gone back under the cones, something might be amiss: we saw both BLB and LBB "go off alone" when they were close to the end. Here's the video of us finding Lucy under the cones in the morning. You can see she accepts a drink willingly straight away, with no sign of warning or retreat. In fact both Holly and Lucy are becoming very receptive and placid to our existence and intervention. 

Lucy finally goes back into the nestbox, albeit rather slowly and we resolve to try and keep an eye on her during the day and check her behaviour.

About an hour later, BCW called me down from the office with great excitement! Holly was out of the nestbox! This really was quite something - over the weeks she's been in this environment she's never really left the nestbox. She did at first to come out and explore the area around the entrance to the nestbox itself, but she never explored the full tub. Basically she just did a bit of door patrol. That soon stopped too - so seeing her come right out into the tub and explore the whole area was both delightful and baffling!

I shot some video of them out in the tub together and turned it into something a little more playful to celebrate the moment!

Over the last few days we've monitored Lucy closely. She has slowed down quite a lot: her "active" day seems to have significantly reduced, starting much later in the morning; and we are finding her asleep/hiding during the day outside the nestbox. That wasn't the case a week ago, when she was exploring non-stop. Today we found her embedded head first under some soft tissue by the side of the nest box. We coaxed her out with some honey water which she drank furiously from the end of a little cardboard stick. (It's actually quite a privilege to feed her directly.) After that she did a quick mini-tour of the tub and then went into the nest, so we killed the lights to encourage her to stay in there overnight. 

So - her pattern of behaviour has changed and although she doesn't seem weaker as she moves around, she seems to rest a lot more. BCW compared this to any human who gets old and needs to rest more, falls asleep in the armchair and so on!

I guess she has a point. 

Powers of Invisibility

LBB (LittleBigBee) has been motionless for well over 24 hours now. We will give him a good send off and return him to mother nature later - after I've taken some macro photos to confirm he is a boy. (The easy way to tell is count the segments on the antennae; though photographing them in sufficient detail is quite a challenge). We had him only for 8 days, though of course he may have been older as his wing-loss looked more like damage rather than deformity. Still, it's such a short life, which seems to make it all the more saddening.

Yesterday my neice, who gave Holly her name, decided that Lucy would a nice name for TLB (TinyLittleBee) - we wholeheartedly agreed, although we have also yet to confirm her gender. And, to be honest, her pattern of behaviour is more male-like.

Something didn't seem right yesterday evening though. It's always been easy to find Lucy in the tub because most of her time is spent exploring the "outdoors" and she goes back into the nest box to rest for a while and then repeats the whole pattern. Always on the move.

But last night we couldn't find her.

This happened before with BLB (BigLittleBee) - he developed a routine of resting under one of the pine cones in the tub. He could get under there so tightly that he was impossible to see no matter how hard you looked. And his buff banding provided wonderful camouflage.

I was certainly convinced there was no way Lucy could be under there. I must have scoured those pines cones with a torch for 15 minutes. In the end, we carefully removed them to check. Lo and Behold! Lucy was indeed tucked right in under there, completely invisible to the outside world. It was great to find her safe and seemingly well, although, in a sense, odd that her behaviour had changed. Although we saw BLB do this and are also convinced that some of our outdoor bees spend the night away from the nest on occasions (either by being caught out by the weather, or some mad last-minute dash to get pollen in the fading dusk), it is highly unlikely that Lucy could be "caught out" in this environment and run out of energy. So why the change in behaviour?

She roused, drank from a daisy-honey-water-combo we placed in front of her, then toddled back to the nest box straight away. In a sense that was a relief, but on the other hand I felt something ominous.

This morning she is not in the nest box; for some reason during the night she has come out again and, I suspect, hidden under the pine cones, summoning all her invisibility powers in the process. We've chosen not to disturb her yet, if she's there, but something is not right. I just sense that something is off-kilter today with Lucy. I can't help but think she is actually a boy and thus destined as BLB and LBB before her.

Coming out. Again and Again.

I was away from home today, so at 6.30am when I got up for work I duly skyped into our 'incubator' to see if any of our bees were up and about. Nothing. That seemed odd. I checked again at 7.30. Nothing. Definitely Odd. 

At about 10.30 I logged in again and saw BCW tending to the box, refreshing the honey-water and helping to upturn a bee that was obviously struggling to get up. I assumed it was TLB (TinyLittleBee) whom we added to the box yesterday. But then she texted me to say that LBB (LittleBigBee) was in trouble and not well. It was not news I wanted to hear - he's only been in our care for 8 days. I dread this moment, wondering if it's something we have done or caused. (We did, for example, add some sugar water to the 'ward' a few days ago).

LBB was struggling to move around and cope with the undulating floor of the nest area; and refusing any kind of drink. He was dragging his sorry body clumsily about the box, barely making any progress whatsoever. He got stuck in the small gap where we plant the lavender stalks. It was very sad to see. We agreed that BCW should move him to a small separate tub so protect him from falling over and getting stuck. He rallied a little, appeared to drink from some soaked kitchen paper, but ultimately crawled to the edge of the tub where he has been still since for many hours. We will wait 24 hours for a final verdict.

Meanwhile, TLB, who had already started to inherit from LBB's behaviour, and benefitted from his helpful presence, appears to have gone from strength to strength. She climbs over the moss in the nestbox with great ease; she patrols the perimeter of the outer tub over the stones behind the nestbox; she hauls herself up the pine cones. Just over a week ago she was a still and lifeless as LBB is now - her recovery is miraculously remarkable.

Her routine, during the main part of the day at least, consists of patrolling the outer tub for short periods of time, then returning to the nestbox, sometimes to feed or scratch away in the moss - behaviours we still don't fully understand. This evening we've seen her come to the pollen in the outer tub, walk over it, then return to the nestbox; it's not obvious that she's collecting pollen, but it is obvious that she is heading straight for it.

Also, I say patrolling the tub quite deliberately: she is not exploring like she did initially - appearing to map out the box by going over and over its various sectors. Rather, her behaviour is quite deliebrate, following a short path that either involves checking the pollen or nectar supplies, or touring round the edge of the tub that encloses the back of  the nest box. Then she heads straight back in again.

Quite what triggers her to come out and perform this routine is not obvious to us, other than she seems to do it regularly. So it seems this is not a response to a nest attack (even though we have observed this behaviour in our outdoor hive). One of my theories is that it's part of the standard behaviour to check what's happening outside the nest. While we have not observed this to the same extent in our outdoor nestbox, we have from time to time seen a bee sitting in the entrance/exit and not actually leaving the box. I wonder if this happens more often than we realise (our CCTV would not really trigger the motion detect if the bee doesn't come right out of the exit). 

This would explain something that has puzzled me: how do the bees know, when they spend their time in a nest that they keep at 30 degrees, when to come out in the morning as the temperature changes. The only sensible theory is that they come and sense what is happening outside the nest at regular intervals, triggering a chain reaction when the time is right for foraging. 

Is TLB teaching us how bumblebees manage their working day?

House on fire

I think before writing this update it's useful to recap where we are with our indoor bees. All of our indoor bees have been rescued from the garden - all of them have had some kind of wing problem which has prevented them from being able to fly. This means they can't feed unless they were to stay in their own hive.

But I learnt my lesson with the first one, trying to put her back in the hive twice. An hour later she was back out again on the lawn, destined to prey or die of starvation. 

So, we created an indoor environment to house our disadvantaged. It started off as an ordinary ice-cream tub but has pretty much evolved into a full scale incubator with indoor nest box, infra-red heating and "daylight" lighting. And of course, 3 video cameras! 

indoor "incubator"

So, at the time of writing we've had four disabled bumblebees come into care. In chronoligcal order (often the best), they are as follows:

• Holly - confirmed female - very small, missing left wing and left middle leg, and twisted body
• BLB ("Big Little Bee") - confirmed male - now deceased - same missing wing and leg as Holly
• TLB ("Tiny Little Bee") - unconfirmed female - actually just slightly larger than Holly - 1 broken right wing
• LBB ("Little Bigger Bee") - unconfirmed male - one missing left wing

We added LBB to the "incubator" last week and discovered that he got on really well with Holly - neither of them moidered each other. Since then LBB has been very busy in his new world - scooting from the nestbox to the outside and back again with regular fervour. 

Meanwhile TLB was in isolation in her own tub as we monitored her strength. It's hard to believe that this miniscule creature has recovered from a state of apparent death to darting around her box, climbing on lavender and feeding herself from the natural nectar rather than the honey water we freely provided for her. As her strength obviously continued to build, we took the decision that it was safe to introduce her to the other bees with some initial supervision. 

We are pleased to say it went very well, and just like LBB she has spent her time chasing round the big box, often in the footsteps of LBB. (Apologies for the picture quality - it's an iPhone screenshot from Skype over 2G!)

LBB and TLB explore together

Also like LBB, she has (at least initially) developed  a routine of coming in and out of the nestbox itself to explore the outer surroundings, and then head indoors for some relaxation and recovery. Quite often, in fact, this seemed to be in synchronisation with each other. At one point LBB even tipped TLB upright when she fell over on her back. What a wonderful thing to see. 

Finally, here's a picture of all three inside the nest box, getting along like a house on fire.

 3 bees in a boxWe are really hoping, that since bees are eusocial, allowing them to co-habit will actually be beneficial for them and help them develop or carry out their meaningful roles. So far, so good! Though I do wonder what chaos tomorrow will bring!