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Our Bumblebee nesting project was originally started in 2011 as a bit of conservation. The aim is to help the declining bumblebee population by encouraging one (or more) to nest in boxes in our garden. 

It's not easy, and these pages document our efforts and results, with the hope of educating others on the trials and tribulations of the world of Bumblebees!

We've discovered, observed and collected a sizeable amount of real-world data, which is still in the process of being analysed and written up (Overview here). We've sourced several live colonies from commercial providers and have been looking after numerous disabled bees indoors. We have learnt to recognise individual bees, spot specific/individual behaviour patterns, measured efficiency and can predict some of their behaviour triggers. 

We also have some CCTV cameras pointing at the nestboxes and inside

You can also follow BeeBoxALula on twitter where our bumblebees are now tweeting live for themselves!

 

Entries in crash (1)

Wednesday
May252011

Mind your head!

We've now got to the point where our CCTV DVR system has been tweaked with all the motion detection and camera angles that we can fairly quickly run through our footage and look for interesting activity. Over the next few postings I'll post a few of the videos we have found that have caught our attention.

Today's is just a funny little clip. BCW actually spotted this as it happened - a bee flew in and instead of flying into the entrance, just flew straight into the box and fell the ground! It then seemed to buzz off into the nearby lavender to recover! The clip below is in slow motion so you can see what happens more easily. 

It's not actually the only instance - we've seen this happen at least one other time. We don't really have an explanation other than a last minute brake failure!