Counting not Catching

We were grateful for the day off work today, thanks to the Royal Wedding of Wills and Kate and although we took time out to watch it and share in their happiness that didn't stop us on our bee quest. Some of this was planning for the Koppert Beehive we'll be getting next week (which I'll cover in another blog) and some of this was heading out to hedge our bets at catching another queen. 

The temperature was about 20 degrees but there was a breeze causing quite a windchill factor; and it seemed like a storm might  be threatening, so we weren't sure if we would see any. We are especially looking for a Carder bee; partly because they have a slightly later nesting season, but mainly because they are less fussy about the environment they nest in, so we think the box might stand a better chance with a Carder. 

However, we did see some bees while we were out - here is the full run down

• One bufftail foraging
• 2 carders - I tried to catch one but couldn't!
• One redtail - may have been a cuckoo - again, I tried to catch it, but couldn't due to uneven dry ground
• A vestal cuckoo bee (buftail) showing nest searching behaviour - we didn't even try to catch it
• 2 unidentified bees that circled us in the field

As you can see, there are still some bees about but much smaller in number; also more cuckoo bees now trying to find nests to take over; and, of course, queens with nests out foraging as they start to lay their colony. 

We're pleased that we're starting to be able to identify cuckoo bees without having to catch them; here's the vestal cuckoo we saw in flight. You can identify here by the lack of yellow band across the top of her abdomen as well as a shinier abdomen and thinner hair coverage. 

Vestal Cuckoo in flight

Bees like Buses

We were rudely awoken by the bin-men today and it seems our overnight Bufftail was too. BCW went downstairs to make some coffee and check on our guest and she was starting to stir. Within about half an hour (8.30am) she was up and away. It was threatening (and turned out) to be a beautiful hot day, so who can blame her. 

My plan was to make some box modifications, which I did and will cover in another post, including the rationale. 

I decided to go out at about 2pm to see if I could locate another Queen - having a resident bee, if only for a night, is rather addictive. And, if we are to house a colony, time is of the essence as most Queens will have managed to find a nest by now. The exception is likely to be the Carder Bees, which emerge a bit later from hibernation; we are now starting to see more Carders and fewer of the others (showing nesting behaviour).

I'd been out for about 45 minutes and was returning home along a ditch embankment when I was rewarded with a Carder Bee searching for a nest site. I threw myself into the ditch with wild abandon as we have never yet managed to catch a carder and I was determined to have a good crack at this one. I was successful. (BB24)

BB24 - Common Carder - if only the iPhone did macro photography properly!

I brought her home and we decided to try her in the front nestbox, mainly because it is the best equipped with video. Carders are supposedly less fussy about the exact nature of the nest-site too, so we felt we might be able to get away with it at the front (non-garden) site. 

She went into the box pretty happpily and did not show any frantic signs of searching to get out. In the end she stayed about 20 minutes, fairly near the entrance, then crawled up the tube and took off. Nothing special with her take off at all, no navigational circling or anything. This was pretty much as we expected, especially trying to introduce her to the box at that time of day - we didn't realistically imagine she would stay.

We then left it till 6pm-ish to go out to find another bee that we might get to stay the night. This time BCW found another Common Carder (BB25) and was able to catch her - two in one day! It goes to show how they are increasing in activity at the moment. BB25 is very vibrant in her gingery colour. 

BB25 - common carder - again, iPhone #fail on the focussing!By this time I had made some significant external modifications to both boxes - basically to add internal and external tubing (to simulate crawling underground) and a new "docking" arrangement for our collection pot. This would allow the bee to more easily be directed into the box and for it to experience a 15-20cm crawl into the box through a dark tube - more like crawling underground.

BB25 was very obliging too, going quickly into the box. The newly installed inner tube leads the bee slightly to the right and she tottered off in that direction, right into good view of the infra-red camera. She poked around a little from side to side, as if to establish the basic width of the space, but not as if she was looking for the entrance/exit again. Then she burrowed a little under the bedding, before picking a spot where she stuck her head down into the bedding and basically went to sleep.

We watched fairly closely for about 90 minutes, as it was still light and warm outside (about 18 degrees) and we felt she still might leave. Every so often she moved up and down a little, adjusted a little, but then rested still again. Part of this activity, including some up-and-down repetitions with her abdomen, could be related to her "breathing" which is thought to occur in bursts every 20-30 minutes.  

BB25 bedded down for the night, face first!The redtails got a look-in too

It wasn't all a "Carder" day. While out looking in the evening the first bee I spotted was a redtail queen. I followed it under some trees and it darted into a hole in the mud. I thought I could easily catch her there and that she was definitely in the right place to be hunting for a nest site. After 30 seconds when she hadn't come out of the hole I began to think maybe this was a nest site. Then when I saw a baby worker bee emerging from the hole, I knew we had found a nest. (And by the way, that baby worker was so cute!)

Redtail nest site - hole under some treesThe hole is in some dried out mud under some trees and about 3 inches in diameter. I'm actually quite intrigued to understand how the hole got there and what it's like underground; wishing I had an endoscopic camera!  This is exciting because it means even if we don't get any nesting in our own nestboxes, within 60 seconds of the house we'll be able to observe the comings and goings of this nest. 

At the time BCW was catching her Carder Bee, I was heading to meet her having found nothing, and then quite unexpectedly saw a redtail bumbling around in the long grass; I couldn't believe my luck, thinking we might have two bees staying the night, and I was able to catch her quite easily. As soon as I had done so I was quite suspicious. She was a bit longer than the redtail bumbles we have caught and her tail had less hair. She basically looked longer and more scrawny. And, although her legs were hard to examine properly through my glass pot, they didn't seem to have the long hairs on them. I came to the conclusion she was a cuckoo bee. 

 BB26 - redtail cuckoo beeBCW agreed with me; you can see from the picture the general lack of hairiness that is associated with 'regular' bumblebees; and look at those crazy long legs! - she basically seems like a poor copy. It's good that we are both developing our identification skills, as we do not want to introduce a cuckoo bee to our nest to find she comes back later and destroys a developing colony. So, with a certain sense of achievement, we let her go.

Sleeping in the corridor while the room goes empty!

Having failed with 4 bees so far, we've decided to try some different tactics. These are some of the things we considered to be issues and have attempted to rectify:

• Ants around the nest - obviously ants are going to steal nectar, so poor bumblebum will have the food she creates for her larvae stolen by ants. She will not want to nest near ants. So, we have put out several traps and are trying to eliminate ants from the area.
• Being trapped in the nestbox overnight. Our judgement is that bumblebum will be too stressed in a box she can't escape from and not consider it suitable for a permanent home. We will no longer be blocking up the box, even for just the first night.
• Entering the box. It seems logical that placing bumblebum directly in the box will be confusing as she will not have assessed the entrance and the box position and general aspect. It seems at least allowing her to enter the box from the outside through the proper entrance stands a better chance of her understanding what is going on.

So we decided for the next bee we would do a couple of things:

• catch a Carder bee, because they are much less fussy about nesting above the surface of the ground
• allow the bee to transfer herself from the bag to the nest box via the main entrance
• make sure the box contains user hamster bedding/litter

Our resident bee-catching wizard came up trumps and caught the requisite bee and brought her back in our pot/bag combo. Then we held the bag to the front of the box. She was very feisty and upset and we were getting concerned about her well-being and considering just letting her go. She passed the entrance several time but to our frustration never went in.

Eventually she grabbed onto the box itself and just stayed still and quiet - we think she was playing dead. So at that point we withdrew the bag and retreated and jsut watched. She stayed there for a long time, perhaps 30 minutes, just totally still. We thought maybe she was warming up to take off.

Eventually, she started to walk up the box and we hoped she would discover the entrance. However, she made her way up the front of the box to just under the ceiling lip and stayed there. Seems like she had found somewhere to bed down for the night - we were surprised she would choose somewhere directly in the open, but she stayed there all night.

In the morning she was gone and there was no evidence of her inside the box :-( 

Obviously we were disappointed but on the plus side, the fact she was prepared to rest on the box during the night suggests our site is sufficently sheltered, which is encouraging.