Weekend Catchup (1st Beepol Weekend)

Infrastructure

I made some minor infrastructure modifications this weekend. We noticed that the smaller, new bumblebees didn't seem to find the new wax moth flap system on the lodge as easy as we had hoped, despite it being slightly wedged open with blutac. It was easy for them to leave, but on return we noticed that they showed more interest in trying to get into the nest at the lodge lid join (smell?) rather than via the open flap. I have to say, this is slightly baffling when the entrance hole is easily accessible. 

In order to aid memorisation and detection of the entrance, I added some bright yellow tape and blue marking on the entrance flap, in case its transparency was causing an issue:

modifications to lodge entranceWe'll remove the blutac when there is a sufficient in-flow/out-flow of bees that they can learn from and assist each other working the flap. This way we'll slowly train the.

We also noticed that memorisation procedure was also taking in more of our other features in the garden, particularly the nestboxes and associated features. This stands to reason, since we have created that environment to be highly visible and attractive to queens. I wanted to make sure that we didn't inadvertently confuse our new bumbles; for example, into trying to return to one of the other nest boxes. To that end I painted a clear white line upto our lodge. Last year we painted a runway for fun - but since bumeblebees use linear features and markings for navigation, this clearly has a useful function for them. This should ensure that the bumbles are able to return to the lodge reliably, even if they are a little confused by the flap when they get there!

linear navigation feature for beepol lodge

Queen Catching

The weather has been all over the place this weekend - despite being sunny at times it never got above 11C on saturday and about 7C on Sunday. Nonetheless I went out queen hunting, if only to survey activity. 

• Saturday: captured 1 redtail very quickly 15:45 - and placed in pilkington box. She stayed in the capture tube, so much so I put the whole tube in there! Eventually left the box sunday. (QB2012-12)
• Saturday:  captured a second redtail at 16:30 - she was very placid, probably happy to bed down; went in box 1 very quickly and stayed there still all night, eventually leaving 11am Sunday. She did no memorisation so she won't be back. (QB2012-13)
• Sunday: I went out about 13:30. It had been sunny but, of course, as I left started to drizzle, eventually hail! Didn't think I'd find much but caught (and lost) a redtail, saw another redtail and bufftail and then eventually caught a bufftail. She also went into box 1, but I didn't observe her leaving. (QB2012-14)

QB2012-13 Redtail resting overnightOn saturday I noticed a few bumblebees out resting and also looking for places to rest, rather than nest. The one in this photo took quite a while exploring this piece of ground. I couldn't understand why as it is not good nest-location ground, but in the end she settled down just to rest. I was intrigued to see how she aligned herself with the features on the ground, as if to achieve better camouflage. (stripe lined up with the white/brown twig; thorax in the shadow). Coincidence or camouflage? It's an intriguing question, but I have a strong feeling that bumbles can use their markings as camouflage and I'm trying to collect as much evidence of this as possible. 

resting queen - coincidence or camouflage?

Nest Activity

For the first few days of the hive, activity levels inside seemed high but we had very few bees showing any interest in the outside world. I think some of those that did may have been lost, as we've not seen many return - although to be fair at this stage I'm not fully tracking all exits & return trips. 

There's quite a range of sizes in the nest - small workers at under 10mm ranging up to some that appear to be twice the size. We have seen one or two seemingly enormous bees on the internal camera, which I am still trying to get a good picture of, to establish if we might have seen the queen.

Finally today (Sunday 15th April) we've seen much more interest in the outside world, although they have picked a lousy day for it! (about 6C - 7C, rain and hail showers, and very windy) Nontheless, some of the tiny bumbles have been bringing pollen back, the first time we've seen that.  There still appears to be some confusion about finding the entrance hole, even with the flap wedged up, so we'll just have to keep an eye on that and ensure none get "stranded" outside the nest. 

Here's a wee one performing memorisation on her first flight.

performing memorisation during first flight from beepol lodge

Audio Frequencies

This year I've started sampling audio frequencies under certain situations to see if there is any pattern - it's purely exploratory at the moment. We've found a queen buzzing at almost a perfect middle C3 (130Hz). 

We noticed during the night the colony, while still busy is a lot quietier and when accompanied by crackling sounds (hatching) there is a single sustained note (often 30 seconds or more in length, repeatedly), so far measured at 180Hz.

During the hail storm today, the bumblees went crazy! A high pitched synchronised sustained buzz, almost like a scream, at between 400Hz and 500Hz. We'll do our best to capture more data to determine any patterns. 

Your Band

I spent some time last night trying to capture some macro shots of Holly in amongst the moss to demonstrate how good her camouflage is. When I looked at her this morning I'm sure her stripy bands were more dull! BCW agreed and had observed the same thing independently.

This is not the first time we have felt the vibrancy of her markings has changed - previously we had been attributing it to a poor state of health and possibly low nutrition. However, the fact it appears to have changed overnight while she is, basically, in a well-fed state sheds a new light on things and generates a whole series of thoughts:

• Do the bands naturally vary in colour over time?
• Is there a periodicity to this (e.g. daily)
• Is it driven by other factors, such as levels of light, state of nutrition/health etc.?

As far as I'm concerned, these are intriguing questions; and given there seems to be little research done about the camouflage aspects of bee bandings, I suspect they are unanswered. I may be able to devise some experiments and measures to try and answer some of these questions.

We have started a page to start to explore the area of bee markings and camouflage.

Buffs and Tufts and Other Stuff

I installed the new (infrared equipped) camera in box 2 late last evening, so this morning we decided to swap boxes and put that box 2 at the front - since they are now both configured the same. (Well, except we need to add an internal tube to box 1, which is now at the back.)

It turned out to be one of our most exciting days so far, but more on that in a moment. 

So, we now have a new improved configuration for our boxes, which has even less bedding material and a small internal tube (just made from about a 3rd length of toilet roll centre tube). Here it is:

new box layout version 3This is just after I installed the new camera - in a much lower position which gives a fuller view along the length of box floor. 

With both boxes set up the same we were able to install the above box as the new "main box" which is out the front. Then we set about setting up the box in the back again. We decided that it might be good to try it on the lawn instead of against the garage, because over the last few days we've seen a few bufftails mooching around the longer bits of grass. So, it was a case of "if the bee won't come to the beebox, the beebox will go to the bee!" We wanted to surround it with tall grasses that would encourage investigation and improve visibility from a distance. Since some of the species of Bumblebees are fussy about being underground we also thought the more we can make it look like a grassy hummock, the better. That also seems to be the trick the BBC employed in their brilliant video. Here's what we came up with.

nestbox on the back lawnAnd this is the view from above - designed to present some grassy tufts that look like they have some nooks and crannies to explore. (The foot is optional!)

overhead view of rear garden beeboxIt was fairly cool outside and we hadn't seen any bees on the lawn or out front, but shortly after midday BCW (bee catching wizard) surprised me by saying she would go look for a bee. She didn't disappoint and by 1pm had returned with a gleaming, vibrant bufftail. Here she is, a wonderful specimen:

BB15 - Bufftail - very bright colours!At 13:15 she went into the box at the front and the excitement began. For starters we were thrilled that we could see really well on the new camera, and she was doing lots of moving around and exploring. We kept thinking she was going to leave, but no, she dived under another bit of bedding and rustled around and generally moved all the furniture about! It was amazing to see her exploring from side to side and end to end in the box. I managed to video some of it off the TV screen.

This behaviour continued on and off for a whole two hours. Towards the end of this time it looked like she was doing laps of the box, quite quickly, and coming up to the camera. All along I had been concerned that she'd feel warmth from the infrared on the camera and that it would be off-putting, but since she stayed two hours, I was thinking on balance this must not have been a problem. Reviewing the video again, though, I began to wonder: was the behaviour at the end of the video - coming up to the camera and going away to the end of the box - something to do with the possible heat coming from it? Especially since I have now mounted the camera lower in the box. It's a quandary. 

There is no real way to know at this stage. Her choice to stay two hours seems significantly impressive; but it was cool when she left at 15:30 (about 14 degrees) - would we have expected this? And her activity was much more impressive than anything we have seen to date with other bees: much more exploring and digging around. 

But the question it still leaves is, what behaviour should we expect from a Queen that really thinks she's found a great place for a nest? Would she leave it so soon? (And not come back, as is the case tonight; and risk another bee finding it). Would we expect her to explore and start moving bedding around, or would we expect her to stay still and just wait and confirm that the nest is not in use by any other animals (bees, mice etc.). Is our human smell offputting? (If she can smell it; is that what she's sniffing out?)

Her behaviour when leaving was the most interesting to date also. We have seen a few bumbles take off slowly and spiral away, which we thought might be some kind of landmarking; however, BB15 crept slowly from the box onto the grass in front, then took of very slowly and hovered and circled in small circles round the box area. This was much more like any kind of "landmarking" than we have seen before. But she still didn't do any big circles, which we have read about. So what's behind her behaviour?

In a way, every day generates more and more questions as we try to deal with the disappointment of another bumbling bumblebum that doesn't seem to want to stay! We're running out of time to be finding bees still out nesting, so the pressure's on to really try and perfect the nest, if indeed there is something we can still do it. Hopefully there's now a really chance that a bee will find the newly camouflaged back nestbox of its own accord. 

Anyway - in the meantime, here's a picture of her wonderful lift off - which was incredibly graceful and controlled. 

we have lift off! (BB15)