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.

May 29, 2012

What's up with the Queens?

May 29, 2012/ Nik Sargent

Finally back from holiday and catching up on updates. I've been a bit "light" on updates recently anyway as the first part of May was almost as miserable as April, and there's been such little activity in our colony we've just been leaving them to get on with it. (Partly I have been sidetracked by the technical elements of the project too ☺).

Anyway, finally this weekend I at least got chance to do a quick traverse along my favourite transect and see what bumbling was happening out there in the wild.

Not much - is the answer - but not nothing either. I've been a little baffled that there are so few bumblebees about in general; really not seeing much of any shape and size, though the flowers have been late coming, many only starting to bloom now (our lavender and "love in the mist" finally broke out this week).

I did see, however, quite a few queens; mainly redtails (4 or 5) but also 2 bufftails. One was cruising along the ditch at a height of about 1.5 metres just minding her own business. Another was burrowing into moss (see video). She wasn't the only one showing nest-searching behaviour - most of the redtails were too seemingly "nest searching too". Here's a video of the "moss-burrowing" - I welcome explanations, since there is no obvious nest hole they are clearing out!

This all seems a bit odd - by the start of May last year pretty much all the Queens were safely alreadu building their nests - but of course the weather has been atrocious and it seems this may have delayed the successful search and establishment of nests. The other compounding factor is what may have happened with "early queens". Our own colony produced about 20 new queens in April - which have all left the nest - so what are they up to now? Perhaps they are just biding their time outdoors, waiting to mate when males appear. (I still need to review the CCTV and figure out when they actually started leaving the nest permanently).

I also saw an unusual bumblebee - black with whitish stripes - almost getting into a fight with some other identified buzzing animal. I think it may have been a cuckoo bee of some sort (e.g. Barbut's). I'll post the video later.

May 28, 2012

The First Time a Bumblebee sees a Flower it knows exactly what to do..

May 28, 2012/ Nik Sargent

This is Dusty. Our tiny little disabled bumblebee who has never flown and thus never been to a field, never visited a garden, never had the joy of exploring a flower.

So we put one in her box.

And she knew exactly what to do. First time.

I love this video. It's the embodiment of the wonder of nature, and instinct developed through millions of years of learning and evolution.

Dusty is quite an old lady already - at the time of writing she's already at least 38 days old! Good on ya girl!

April 25, 2012

Fat Bottomed Girls - and our 1st goodbye

April 25, 2012/ Nik Sargent

We've had a few bumblebees in care now, 3 in fact, all very small and missing various bits such as wings and legs. They've been getting along great together in their box and feeding well. Here they are all sleeping/resting together - very cute ☺

3 tiny bumbles resting overnightOnce BCW was back from her travels she decided to name them after the 3 Amigos (3 Abeegos, as I call them): Lucky, Dusty and Nedine (girl's version of Ned).

Sadly, girl/worker bumblebees generally have a very short life, perhaps 1 - 3 weeks, and the small ones especially so. Lucky, the first one I rescued, took a turn for the worse mid morning - very still and listless. We offered her some honey water but she wasn't interested and it didn't help to revive her.

Little Lucky - not feeling so wellIt looks like this evening we've lost her; sad indeed, but we are becoming used to it - all part of the short cycle of life for bumblebees and for her only perhaps 6 - 10 days old.

I've not had chance to scan the CCTV so far this week (which is not good) - but it's been so wet and windy that there's not been a lot of activity. One of the most intriguing things we'e seen is what seems to be a queen fanning. I'm surprised she is taking on a worker role. I keep doubting if it's a queen, but here's a series of pictures and I'm sure that all the large bees are queens. Indeed, some of them are easily over 25mm in length.

a very sizeable bee - queen - fanning Another shot of the same queenOther large bees - NOT queen size - fanning