Big Mamma & her gang

Well, another week has flown by and our bees have been busy flying too. There's no doubt now that we have at least 6, if not 8 bumbles in the colony.

The number is never static or definitive because obviously there is birth and death occuring, as well as the fact that some bees will stay out overnight (see picture), and any males will be leaving the nest to mate. So, at times it can be tricky to be 100% sure how many are colonising the nest at any one time, but what I can do is come up with some numbers based on those I can distinctly identify by sight and also tracking how many are in and out at any one time. 

A cheeky bee that stopped out all night, sloping in at 6.30am!

It's this latter metric that gives my current estimated count; at one point this morning there had been 6 exits from the nest without a corresponding return, which means there are a minimum of 6 bees on active duty. However, at the same time I had two on undetermined status - I had seen two leave the night before, with no corresponding return in the meantime.

Bear in mind, it doesn't matter about matching each bee with its own exit and return, it's just a case of counting 1-in-1-out and seeing how the numbers tally. If three leave and two return, it doesn't matter which ones they are, or what order, it means that there is still one out. That's the basis of my counting. 

So, I had two unaccounted for away from the nest and then another six on top of that. It's at this stage you start to go slightly bonkers and wonder whether you have miscounted or whether the tech has missed recording some of the activity, because it all seems a bit incredulous when you have no idea whether a queen has been laying and how much (or whether) hatching is going on!!

Anyway - that's 6 - 8 bees actually on active outdoor duty, but we can still add to that...

Who's the boss here?

This week I've had 3 additional glimpses of "big mamma" as I affectionately call her.

A rare glimpse of big mamma - she easily spans the two horizontals

She hasn't been out of the nest, so she is not counted in the above numbers. She is the biggest bee in the nest and her description fits one of the five or so big bees we saw before our holiday while we were still lifting the nest lid at night. Our gut feeling is she is a queen and is responsible for the brood that has been developing. This is fitting with the following facts: 

1. we did see these big bees collecting pollen a few weeks ago, which is what they would do before their brood is underway
2. she's now in hiding - she doesn't leave the nest and barely comes into view - just occasionally having walked across the camera zone
3. not forgetting we've had some hatching, so we must have had a queen and she must have laid something, even if she has stopped doing so

It's possible that the three sightings of "big mamma" relate to more than one big bee, as it's not possible to prove they are identical from the CCTV footage. However, this seems unlikely from a behavioural point of view, as although bumblebees are eu-social, they do also fight over owning the brood, so it's hard to imagine several queens co-existing harmoniously. Although, of course, we did directly observe them co-habiting for a short while a month ago before we went on holiday. 

A rather large and long bumble at the entrance - could this be a queen?

Crunch time

The other thing we observed yesterday was the strange crunching/crackling sound that has troubled me in the past. It lasted about 15 minutes and through the CCTV system it sounds rather like a kind of crunching or munching sound. It's the volume that surprises me, and every time I hear it I dread that it's the sound of wax moth larvae destroying the nest, chewing their way through the wax. Our last check inside the nest was two weeks ago and at that time there was no evidence of such an infestation, so I am hopeful this is still the case (despite having seen a tiny moth in the nest yesterday, but not - I think - a wax moth). 

It was shortly after this burst of sound, which was accompanied by a reasonable degree of buzzing, that we caught a glimpse of big mamma. 

My revised hunch is that this is the sound of hatching - of a baby bumblebee, known as a callow - breaking free from its wax pot, helped by its co-workers. I would love to see this in action to confirm this, and just to see it anyway, so I'll be giving some consideration for how to achieve this next year. 

This ties up with another part of my hunch, which is that there may be another new callow in the nest. What I've seen is a small bee darting about the place for a while, exploring as if learning the layout of the nest. It moves quickly with apparent curiousity and goes to the entrance, explores, but doesn't leave. Having seen this a few times, I think it's the behaviour of a new-born as it orientates itself and prepares for its launch into the big wide world. In the meantime it is able to stay in the nest, supplied with food by its sisters and helping with any remaining brood and various nest duties. Indeed, the smaller bees are thought to generally adopt this as their role.

So, I'll be on the lookout for this small one, particularly if it leaves, in which case we'll hope to spot it memorising the nest on its first flight. 

Census

Here's a rundown of the current occupants we know about:

• Big Mamma - the largest in the nest, rarely seen
• "Stripy bee" - there have been two of these, fairly large, with unusual tail markings; one was a nest fixer, the other collected pollen - we haven't seen much of the nest fixer lately, so may not be around any more
• Mid-size - there are at least two midsize bees on duty
• Small - there is at least one small bee on duty; it's quite hesistant about coming back into the nest when it returns - it always seems to fly up then leave for 15 - 120 seconds before actually coming in. Don't understand why!
• tiny - there was a tiny bee we saw last week, the first confirmation we had of new births. We've seen her occasionally, but not sure really what she's up to if still around

These numbers don't add up to my earlier total, so there must be some lookalikes in there I haven't accounted for.

Oddly there is no real apparent "nest fixing" or patrolling going on now, although on of the "stripy bees" continues to stick its bum out of the door to check the temperature in the morning!

sticking the tail out as a thermometer

Times are tough

It's also proving hard work for the team to collect pollen, though they are very busy trying. During the warm sun the activity levels have been quite high, almost to the level when we first got the nest with the original (though small) colony. But the pollen is in short supply, with them often returning with a small amount, and never the bulging pollen baskets that we saw during the summer. In some cases they return only for a sip of the honey water in the entrance, and go straight back out again. Trip times can now be anything from 10 minutes to an hour or two.

Thankfully they are still finding something (orange and light yellow) and we have actally tried putting out some artificial flowers with a bit of pollen on to see if they will try visiting them. We don't really expect it to work and so far it hasn't!

Each day brings a new surprise and it is fascinating to see our colony fighting for survival, a colony that has emerged against all the odds and proved just how remarkable our little Bombus friends are.

There's no doubt about it, a hat tip is due to Big Mamma.

Shandy open, babies born

Events took an usual and exciting turn yesterday after I had posted my entry wondering about the mysteries of what was going  on inside our nest and whether we were seeing evidence for a second brood. 

Well, the shandy was duly cracked open as we were astonished to get confirmation that a second colony of bees was hatching. 

We caught a short glimpse of this little beauty on the CCTV (not been seen since). The picture shows her compared to the largest bee we have in the nest. 

a newly hatched bee compared with the largest in the nestAs you can see, she is tiny. We hope she is well formed and hasn't hatched too soon or been too cold. It's not quite possible to tell from the CCTV if her wings are properly intact. That's one of the things that define her potential for success.

We think there are four in total now, though they keep confusing me from time to time by staying out overnight! The bees we can identify are:

• The big fuzzy one seen above. Can't be 100% sure if she is a queen or not, but she is collecting pollen regularly.
• Two "thin & stripy" bees, with very unusual (but similar) markings. One of these has been around a few weeks and had "nest fixer" role, rarely collected pollen. But a second one now exists, and does seem to spend more time collecting pollen, but also has a nest-checking role. Because they are collecting pollen they cannot be Cuckoos; so what is the explanation for their strange markings? I like the idea that they are offspring from the Buftailed Queen and Redtailed male we saw mating. Need to check out if that is viable, but the timing would fit.
• Little "Baby bee" as seen above. We've only seen the one glimpse of her inside the nest, so have no idea at this stage what she's up to or even whether she's still alive. 

Having seen the pattern of the original colony fade, about 5 Queens emerge, see one of them mating, see pollen still being collected and seeing these new bees emerge, it's conclusive evidence that we'd had a second - albeit small - brood. 

What a wonderful journey our bees have been on! I feel like another shandy... 

Two fingers up to the master plan

There's definitely a plot thickening and developing in our Beepol bumblebee hive. 

But let me wind back a little.

We've had the beepol hive fractionally under three weeks (at the time of writing) and ever since we've had it, it's not been hugely active - not like the Natupol hive before it. We weren't too concerned as we figured it was "end of the season" (sort of) back at the start of August when we got it and that we ought to expect the nest to be in decline. It turns out, however, after expert confirmation, that the nest suffered overheating somewhere along its lifetime - melting and damaging the wax and thus also some of the colony. 

After a few days of stabilising the hive and its wooden lodge, getting all the CCTV installed and configured, I began tracking all activity in and out of the nest. I couldn't do this with the natupol box as it was too much data for someone with another day job to process! However, the activity levels were low enough in the more-recent beepol box for me to start this tracking. 

What we discovered by the time a week had gone by was that activity levels consisted of somewhere in the region of 25 total trips a day. We can't say is how many bees exactly were responsible for these trips, but my hunch was about half a dozen. What I can say is that there were, at one point, at least 5 bees out of the box at the same time (i.e. 5 more total exits than returns during one time period). 

We'd also seen a few new-born bees emerging from the box - which we can tell by their circling/memorisation behaviour the first time they leave the nest. These were mainly workers, coming back with pollen. I started counting the pollen trips too and it represented most of the trips. So far, so good - nothing unusual, just a hive of workers doing their thing.

But we noticed something curious...

...We had queens. Several. On about day 4 of our installation 2 new ones emerged, then the next day 3 more emerged for the first time. There was quite a collection. It was beautiful and touching, but of itself nothing particuarly surprising. Indeed, the destiny of our Mother Queen, any Mother Queen, is to lay new queens that will carry the baton over winter hibernation to begin next year's colonies. We were seeing that process unfold, having suffered the disappointment of the Natupol colony not quite making it that far. Wonderful. Destination: destiny. 

A little more surprising was the fact that some queens were bringing pollen back to the nest. Unmistakable. There is really only one concrete reason for this: that they are laying and hatching young. Their own young. Queens do not really co-operate in the nest like workers - indeed may fight for dominance. Oddly, our handful seemed to be co-operating. This was a jigsaw with a lot of missing pieces. 

Size comparison: Worker (left) vs. Queen (right) bringing pollen back to the nest

As the next two weeks passed, aside from some inclement weather, activity significantly dwindled to the level of about half a dozen trips a day, if that. That could be just one bee. And It's really tailed off the last few days.

We've been checking the nest at the dead of night and trying to see how many live bees are in the there.

inside view of the nest. All quite small and contained and heat damaged

For the last week the number has been anywhere between 5 and 7 and 4, with rises and falls in number that could really only be explained by some of the  bumbles managing to find a hiding spot in nest.  I felt despondent at the drop to 4,  thinking yet again "this is all over now". But then the next night we saw 6 maybe 7. Foxy things these little bumbles. 

My hunch instinct was working overtime too. You have to remember that over the course of this season, I have scanned so much CCTV footage (much at high speed) that my ability to recognise and decipher CCTV images of bees has become like a seventh sense. I felt we were down to one, maybe two Queens bringing pollen back, though there were more in the nest. We were still thinking this was some kind of misguided (and co-operative) behaviour. Maybe one of them was Mother Queen...? maybe one of them was helping with some of Mother Queen's previously layed babies?  No - actually - it didn't stack up.

On top of that, we had seen a queen or two "fussing". "Fussing" is my technical term for doing something to a wax pot that you can't see (because they are on top, obscuring your view). Is "fussing" keeping the temperature up? Is "Fussing" helping to break through the wax? Or something else?

Either way, there was "fussing" but it didn't fit the mental jigsaw we were currently picturing. We didn't know yet that maybe we had the wrong jigsaw.

Then something really surprising happened this weekend (about 17/18 days in). A small, fluffly, faded bumble, with a dislocated wing, crawled to the entrance of the nest and didn't know what to do. 

 

Where had little "1.5" wing been all this time? Actually (s)he was rather bedraggled and lethargic. We've seen this before; it means one of two things: new born or very poorly. Or both. Quite often the bees come out of the nest, almost in a trance-like daze when they are ready to die. Sad, poignant, and utterly amazing. 

If it was a worker from the Mother Queen, it didn't make sense. We'd seen the last of her worker brood all emerge two weeks ago (and we suspect Mother Queen was the queen who came out to finally be laid to rest in our spare nestsbox). So, really only two explanations fit:

• this was a male born a few weeks ago (pehaps to Mother Queen - that fits) who has been unable to fly, stayed in the nest, and now at two weeks old has come out to die (a typical lifespan for a male). But, we'd have expected him to follow his instinct and leave the nest earlier anyway, hoping to mate. 
• this is a newborn of one of our new queens. She's been laying, brooding and hatching - that would explain the pollen. Chances are it would be a male from an unfertilised egg. But, I suppose there is the possibility a Queen  has mated (we know one did with a redtail, for sure) and layed a fertilised egg. In which case this is a girl. 

Either way, the latter conclusion means that we have an "offspring" Queen laying new bees. Building a second colony. In the same season as she was born in. A sort of "Colony Deja Vu". This is not the natural order of things; she is suppoed to go off an mate and hibernate. But it is known to happen with Bombus Terrestris on occasions. How amazing for us to witness it.  

Sadly, little 1.5-Wing didn't last the night. We took him/her indoors for intensive care, but demise was quick and thankfully peaceful. 

Another birth?

The next day I was leaving at 6am for a drive to work. I quickly scanned the overnight CCTV footage and was intrigued to see a small bee spending the entire night on the inside wall of the nest by the entrance. Hunch mode.

I've learnt lots of behaviour patterns and this one is typical of a new bee. This is their first time preparing for the big wide world; they are programmed to do it, but they show a sense of uncertainty; of a need to prepare - just like fledglings leaping from a nest for the first time. New bees seem to take their time, figure out where the exit is, emerge a little nervously - and then.... launch backwards with all their might, hoping to stay airborne while memorising their surroundings in sufficient detail to be able to find their way back again.

Imagine that moment for our little bumblebee - it's a bigger event than breaking out of their wax pot to gasp the safety of the nest air; this, instead, is the Apollo moment. 

At one point in the footage I spotted a queen making for the exit and I managed to grab a screen shot of them side by side. You can see very clearly, one is a queen and one is not. 

 Queen bee and worker/drone bee side by sideAbout four hours later (by which time I was at work and monitoring from my iPhone), little new bee emerged into the entrance vestibule and spent another 30 minutes or so in there. I grabbed a screenshot, where you can just make her out.

The she came out onto the side of the entrance and clung on while I watched. An email arrived. I looked away. When I looked back, she was gone! I didn't know if she had flown or fallen, but I did know she hadn't gone back into the nest. I texted BCW and asked her to investigate and check the lawn. She reported back a few minutes later, although I had observed the whole episode on the CCTV anyway. Little bee had been found, clinging to our garden light. She was born disabled and deformed. She had no wings. BCW took her into care, where she has been this evening. 

Pieces of the same Jigsaw?

We're trying to piece this jigsaw together. The timing of the emergence of these two (apparently) new "non-Queen" bees certainly suggests we have new offspring. That means one of our queens is laying. That explains why pollen is being collected and honey supplies built up (both at fairly substantial levels in the nest).

My big concern, though, is the deformity. Two bees in a row. It could be genetic (especially from inbreeding) but I think it's temperature - I don't think development is occuring at the right temperature (30 degrees C) and consequently the bees are not forming properly. This is easily explained by the damage to the nest and lack of insulation material available; plus the open cavernous space of the lodge which will provide poor insulation. Poor queen will be working overtime to keep her wax pots at 30 degrees and won't stand a chance. 

We really want to do something to help - Queenie needs half a dozen successful workers or so to start building the critical mass to develop and supply her new colony, so she can focus on serious nest laying. If we can help her get to that point, there is a chance of a new colony starting to develop, in this tatty, damaged, melted, deserted, graveyard of a nest. It's almost two fingers up to the master plan. I love it. 

As an urgent measure we need to get a thermometer into the nest and then consider whether we can help insulate and heat it. I do have a plan about how to go about this, but time is not on our side. I'm away from home at HQ for another day and then we're only home a short time before our holiday. 

Conservation is always a race against time.