Bye Bye Bea

I haven't said much lately about little Beatrice, our tiny tiny bee being cared for indoors. We discovered her 17 days ago when she left the nest but was unable to fly.

We brought her indoors to keep warm and feed and for many days on end took her outside to encourage her to fly , but she was having none of it!

Her wings were a little bit bent: not fully developed; and consequently she just couldn't achieve lift off even though she could flap them perfectly well.

She was doing really well indoors and going through several noticeable stages if behaviour regarding her environment and security.

A full write up on this behaviour is probably due at the end of the project, suffice to say that we were encouraging her to feed naturally from lavender (which she did without any trouble) and gradually teach her that she was not in danger from our intrusions into her nest.

Tiny little Beatrice next to the lavender and a small nutshell containing honey water

Initially she would 'fizz' and throw herself on her back, sting pointing threateningly at us as she did so, whenever we removed her tub lid and changed her food.

Last week that behaviour subsided and a casual warning leg became more routine. By yesterday even this behaviour was waning and she was starting to ignore our intrusions, realising that lid off and syringe looming means tasty new honey water.

Holly got to this point, and indeed beyond. She would come to the syringe and drink as we refilled her food; a process which took about 3 weeks to develop.

Many experiments have shown that bees can be trained in this pavlovian way: but we have shown they can be trained to lower their guard.

I was looking forward with great anticipation to the ongoing development of Bea and her potential to substantially outlive the colony she emerged from (Holly lived to about 70 days old - very old).

But sadly we found Bea dead today on her back. We have no explanation yet what might have caused such a sudden deterioration. In all other cases we have observed at least 24 hours of lingering debilitation and struggle. Bea was at her brightest yesterday and yet today she was gone.

Of course, we'll observe our usual 'quarantine' rules and not act on anything until 24 to 48 hours have passed, as we've had near-miracle recoveries in the past. We're not hopeful though.

We can't be sure whether the honey water we supplied her could be at fault but our observations suggest his hasn't affected the bees in the nest that drank it. The bottom line is, we have no alternative but to use it for indoor bees that can't fly and forage for themselves.

We should also remember that Bea is practically of microscopic size - she is most certainly under-developed to a significant degree. Whilst this is clearly visible externally in terms of her size and wing trouble, who knows how well her internal organs had developed. She seemed spritely enough, but this cannot tell the whole story.

So it's with greatest sadness we say farewell to Bea. We had a soft spot for Holly, but Bea was especially adorable and feisty. She lost two almost-identically diminutive sisters on their first exploration from the nest and it's such a shame we were unable to help them and have a small colony indoors - bumbles are, after all, social creatures.

Either way, we have to take comfort in the knowledge that we gave her a decent and safe quality of life for her final days.

Stuck in an ice-cream tub

So, a little update on "Micro Bee", whom we rescued last weekend. Well, she is now known as "Beatrice" or "Bea" and was named by my niece Chloe, who also named Holly (our disabled bee) and Fifi (our original Koppert Queen). 

So, a quick recap: we brought Bea indoors after watching her leave the nest and walk across the lawn (only a few feet) but not succeed in flying. She is absolutely tiny - about the size of a small fly - but perfectly formed, at least visually (i.e not missing limbs, all the right colours etc.). However, her wings are slightly bent and we think this is the reason she doesn't seem to fly. 

I honestly can't describe how small she is - here is a picture of her in her tub to give you an idea:

little Bea - trying to get her to fly

So, we've followed the same routine we did with Holly and BLB  - both of whom were disabled and couldn't fly - and kept her indoors in a small ice cream tub, with some materials to explore and a supply of known/safe honey water. 

We tend to her regularly but try to allow her to experience natural daylight hours. Every day we take her out (as above) and give her the opportunity to try and fly, but has not tried to do so. There's no real excuse for her not doing so at the moment, given the unnaturally warm temperatures we are experiencing (about 29 degrees C), so she could easily get up to temperature. 

It's not ideal keeping her indoors and we are debating whether to try and return her to the nest. The problem is, if she wanders out again without our supervision, she could easily get lost on the lawn and run out of energy and/or quickly become prey. Quite simply, she is just not equipped for life outside the nest. 

I have the following concerns keeping her indoors:

• could it be affecting her 'mood' - there is evidence from honey bees that their disposition can be affected by negative events, to the extent that they show signs of "depression" (altered behaviour states and less persistence, i.e. giving up more quickly). I would hate it if this was happening.
• Bumblebees are basically social creatures; their behaviour a jigsaw piece in the bigger colony system. So, by being away from the colony, both the isolated bee and the colony could be affected. Quite simply, Bea cannot fulfil her role or instincts if separated from her siblings. 
• Does it change her behaviour patterns?

Actually, we have pretty strong evidence that behaviour patterns are changed, not just from Bea but from holly  et al. we kept indoors before her. The first 24 hours is spent in a very active and exploratory phase, as you would expect. when given the chance to explore (e.g. taking the lid off outside) they try to escape (or at least explore beyond the boundaries of their confines).

Then next few days this really calms down, essentially coming to a halt and there appears to be a sense of resigned stillness. There is little activity, often they hide under the moss and seem to spend a lot of time "sleeping". This is very much like a "low mood" creeping in, having learnt their surroudings and discovered they are alone and trapped. 

Over the next few days they then appear to become "masters" (or mistresses I suppose!) of their environment. A strong sense of territory and defence appears to develop. At this stage, opening the tub is greeted with warning signs, such as raised leg. As the days go by this becomes even stronger with different levels of warning - the final stage being lying on the back with sting pointed at you. What's more, the response at this stage is instantaneous; without a moment's delay the bee throws itself onto its back and warns with its sting. It becomes very protective of its food supply, which leads to more warnings as this is topped up with a syringe.  When taken outside and given the opportunity to explore/fly, there is no apparent interest in doing so. Indeed, the behaviour at this stage is now attending to and defending the nest/environment with no requirement for exploration beyond those boundaries. 

This is the stage that Bea is at, so trying to get her to fly now seems completely fruitless and adds to the dilemma of whether she is now so conditioned to her tub environment that trying to return her to the nest is counter-productive.

We've only had a Bea for a week so that's as far as her behaviour has developed; but, of course, we had Holly for much longer and saw these patterns develop further, such that warning signs subsided and indeed there was a complete acceptance of intervention with the food supply.

Indeed, eventually Holly learnt that the syringe meant new food and would come to get it even before we had chance to administer it. She was also completely happy drinking while we were topping up. Quite remarkable really. She also went into a much more intense "nest fixing" mode, constantly working at the nest. Rarely she would come out of the nest to check the immediate surroundings then return. Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly) she was stimulated by other bees and was far more active when they were in her environment. 

Anyway, that's a summary of some of the behaviour - I intend to produce a more detailed write up in due course. 

Back to the nest?

If we do add Bea back to the nest, there are two key risks. The first is she simply just starts to explore again to discover her new environment and ends up tired and lost outside of the nest. The second is that she tries to perform like her tiny siblings, one at least of which has been collecting pollen. And befalls the same fate. So either way the outcome is the same. 

tiny bee working to collect pollenPurely for interest, above is a picture of one of her equally tiny colleagues on the way out to collect pollen. This wonderful miniature bundle of bumbleness has been busy foraging and managing to find a source of lovely bright orangey pollen - possibly late flowerign lavender (of which we have some). She comes back with her legs buckling under the 'vast' quanity she has collected. 

She's actually one of the most active bees in the nest and she (or an identical looking sister) has the role of some patrolling and nest checking, especially at night. When we opened the nest for a quick look last night, there she was scooting round the perimeter of the plastic box ensuring everything was safe; with a little warning fizz on occasions just to keep us in check. 

She may be small, but she's taken on a big role. 

67

It's been a quiet weekend (plus a day off work) on the blogging front owing to us have guests; and to a degree also quiet on the bee front for the reasons outlined below.

Special Guest

Our guests were very special - amongst them was my 3yr old niece, Chloe, who named Holly for us. Since the loss of Lucy (Lucas) last week, Holly had changed behaviour. She came out of her nestbox and started sleeping "outdoors" in the tub overnight. And her activity levels had begun to drop. Prior to the arrival of Chloe we were concerned for Holly's wellbeing, desperately hoping she could hang on for wee Chloe to meet and enjoy watching. 

Thankfully Holly clung onto the last, although she became very slow and inactive over the weekend. At one point we had a major scare, when for the first time she managed to get trapped in amongst the stones in the box.

Chloe had the pleasure of seeing her outside of the nestbox (and inside for a short while) over the weekend and walking a little, though most of her time was spent resting under moss. Sadly tonight, though, is her last at the grand old age of 67 days. 67 days of joy, amusement and often bafflement. She's followed the pattern we now recognise - become very still during the day; shaking or moving a little, gradually less and less; unsteady; curled up a little, tongue out; but unable and unwilling to drink anything.

A tiny, stripy ball, barely perceptible below the moss that was keeping her warm and feeling safe. Holly was rescued quite unexpectedly and we had to develop and perfect our techniques and care for her and her siblings on the fly; and she has taken a lot of our attention over the last few months, so she will indeed be missed. After our standard 24 hour minimum confirmation period we will give her a fine burial in the lavender where the next generation of bumblebees will forage next year. 

Holly when she was rescued

Koppert Colony

The other sad news is the final demise of our Koppert Hive in the garden. Over the month we noticed the sound inside the nest changing from a busy buzzing to a crackling sound. We had no real explanation for this at the time, although I now think it was the onset of Wax moth. Over the last week the activity in the box has signifcantly declined to the point where yesterday there was an average of about one "Motion" event every hour - which probably represented at most one or two bees actually active and foraging. 

The Hive has just made it to 10 weeks old - it was quoted as 10 - 12 weeks lifetime, so there is the possibility this is a natural conclusion and not caused by the wax moth. However, there is no denying the fact that not only did I see moths on the CCTV outside the box on occasions, but sadly over the last two days I have seen (at least) one inside the box. This is just such a bad omen. It's very upsetting to think that the colony might have been destroyed by this parasite, whose larvae destroy the waxy honey pots inside the nest and thus destroy its ability to survive. I really hope they have been able to produce new queens before this devastation, but I'm not too hopeful that was indeed the case.

If I'd known about the wax moth when we got the hive I would have taken stringent measures to try and better protect it. As it is, I knew no better. My plan for next year is to find something natural to try and discourage the moth (Mint has been suggested) as well as look at technology solutions. My preferred option at the moment is the wireless entrance controller by Koppert to close the box overnight. 

This is not the end of our project - aside from being sure the colony is fully inactive, there is still some data to collate from the CCTV system and also much writing up to be done. Then there are preparations for next year; I want to design something for queens to hibernate in later in the year. I also want to adapt our nestboxes in various ways. There is quite a lot of photography to sift and organise, and I have several other creative ideas too. It's going to be busy!

Looking for Lucy?

We came downstairs on Wednesday morning and confirmed that, sadly, Lucy had indeed died. She was curled in her "ICU" tub, static and fragile as he had been for the last 12 hours or more. She'd made an amazing recovery two weeks earlier when she looked almost the same, but this time it was final. 

There at the entrance of the nestbox was Holly, adopting the position we have seen other sentinel bees adopt outside: head poking out of the entrance hole; one front foot in, one front foot out. She was checking something. 

A few minutes later she was back in her nestbox, mooching in her moss. The absence of Lucy had caused an immediate change in Holly that was reminiscent of her former behaviour - just sleeping in the moss all day. It was the introduction of the other bees for company that seemed bring Holly out of her shell and adopt a role as head nest Matron and General Floor Scratcher. 

We left her to be, slightly concerned, but thankful she appeared to be as energetic as usual, even if her behaviour pattern was different. An hour or so later when we came to check on her she wasn't in her box at all! There she was, poking round the big tub! This is only the second time it has happened; the first time was a week earlier after LBB had died and Holly came out with Lucy. At the time we wondered whether somehow Lucy had encouraged Holly to come out, but following this latest pattern it looks more like a search for a lost friend. 

I took this video of Holly exploring round the box. It's quite long because it was such a rare opportunity and we don't get a lot of chance to study her or see what patterns she adopts when she's out of the nestbox. 

It was clear she was going to stay in the "outdoors" all day so we made special provision by bring in more lavender and coating it with some honey water. Some of the lavender was wet too, and to our great joy she climbed straight onto it and drank and drank as if she'd just run a marathon. All along we've wanted to make things as natural as possible for all our bees and this was an opportunity to try and teach her something all her siblings absolutely love to do: feast on lavender!

Holly continued to give us a few scares by not going back in her box overnight and managing to hide herself around the tub. This behaviour is concerning because it's in the last few days of life that we've seen the other bees start to change their sleeping pattern. The plastic tube rolling into the centre of the tub was the first consequence of her attempting to push herself into an imaginary cubby hole underneath it. It shocked us when we discovered how far she'd been able to move it - though it probably shocked her more as it set off down the incline! But, she was determined to stay out and burrow into the tube, so in the end we covered her with some moss and to the best of our knowledge she stayed there all night. 

She's been doing the same today - traversing round the box, resting at times. We haven't really seen her drink, which is a worry; but she seems to have lots of energy, even though she now seems to be on a 10 hour day, compared to her previous 24! The important thing is that she has been active rather than burying away for extended periods, as if she has lost interest in being a bee. 

What's most baffling, though, is the complete change. And the fact that it is syncronised with the loss of Lucy. She has a box with infra-red heating that she loved to sleep in, going empty! It seemed as though Holly was looking for Lucy at first - and now that she can't be found, Holly has changed role. She doesn't need to be Matron (or floor-scratcher for that matter). Perhaps she's come out into retirement!

Entitled to an Armchair

Fading

We've seen a steady decline in Lucy (TinyLittlebee) over the last few days and today looks very close to the end.

I wasn't home but BCW administered wonderful care and provided status reports for me. Just as LBB had done before, Lucy became unsteady and uncoordinated and by this evening has become stationary. Perhaps, if you look closely with a magnifying glass there is a little twitch in the back leg. Or maybe it's just air currents. 

She's struggled for the last 24 hours - falling on her back regularly and being unable to right herself. It is heart-wrenching to watch in such a small, fragile creature. It's exactly the same pattern as followed by LBB a week ago and it signalled his final fading moments. 

We've done all we have in our power to do and given Lucy another 2 weeks of life that she could never have had when we found her - indeed, she seemed to have lost her fight for life then, when she managed to make a miraculous recovery, spurred on by LBB who at one point even tipped her back on her feet.  

Lucy exploring the tub

Armchair Action

Likewise, Holly created a bit of a scare this morning; she too was a bit still and lifeless and not up to her usual antics. BCW assures me that during the day she sprung back into action albeit with perhaps more rest than usual. That's still true this evening, although what activity I did see seemed usual - just less prolonged. 

What we don't know is whether Holly is affected by the absence of Lucy. I actually think there is some merit to this theory - certainly the introduction of LBB and Lucy increased Holly's activity, who for a while we were quite concerned about. Prior to that introduction, Holly was spending a lot of time just resting under the moss and not exploring, not even inside the nestbox, let alone the main tub. Lucy and LBB seemed to create something for Holly to do; whether it was just tidying the nest after their interruptions, or merely the "social" interaction (the bees do, after all, occasionally shove each other about and walk on top of each other!) we shall never know. So I'm wondering now whether Holly will return to her more reclusive behaviour? 

Of course we mustn't forget that Holly is now a hefty 60 days old, at least. In female bee terms that makes her quite the Centenarian - quite entitled to an armchair once in a while!

Slowing Down?

A couple of days ago we "lost" Lucy (TinylittleBee) under one of the pine cones in our indoor tub. We politely woke her from her "outdoor" slumber and she (perhaps grumpily!) returned to the nestbox. But at least we felt she was in the best place for the night.

It left us wondering why the change in behaviour and whether she was feeling ill or slowing down: After all, when your life expectancy is measured in a few weeks, every day can be like 5 or 10 human years. 

We came down in the morning and once again Lucy was not in the nestbox - clearly she had ventured out during the night/dawn and hidden again. We suspected the pine cones, and there indeed was her small behind poking out, twitching slightly as she breathed. Once again we very gently encouraged her out from the cones and offered her a drink.

Now, you might wonder why we would disturb her and possibly stress her more than necessary and generally we would indeed leave well alone? But there are times when behaviour seems a little bit out of the ordinary and we have to make a judgement on whether to leave her (or any of the bees) alone or check whether she is in trouble - e.g. run out of energy, stuck on her back etc.  Intervention is a last resort, but the whole point of rescuing and saving these otherwise helpless bees was to extend their life and give them some "quality" (if it's possible to measure such a thing in the bee world). Lucy has always been a bit weaker than Holly in general, despite having a full complement of wings and legs; so we tend to be on the lookout for her wellbeing.

We concluded that since Lucy had come out of the nestbox during the night, and gone back under the cones, something might be amiss: we saw both BLB and LBB "go off alone" when they were close to the end. Here's the video of us finding Lucy under the cones in the morning. You can see she accepts a drink willingly straight away, with no sign of warning or retreat. In fact both Holly and Lucy are becoming very receptive and placid to our existence and intervention. 

Lucy finally goes back into the nestbox, albeit rather slowly and we resolve to try and keep an eye on her during the day and check her behaviour.

About an hour later, BCW called me down from the office with great excitement! Holly was out of the nestbox! This really was quite something - over the weeks she's been in this environment she's never really left the nestbox. She did at first to come out and explore the area around the entrance to the nestbox itself, but she never explored the full tub. Basically she just did a bit of door patrol. That soon stopped too - so seeing her come right out into the tub and explore the whole area was both delightful and baffling!

I shot some video of them out in the tub together and turned it into something a little more playful to celebrate the moment!

Over the last few days we've monitored Lucy closely. She has slowed down quite a lot: her "active" day seems to have significantly reduced, starting much later in the morning; and we are finding her asleep/hiding during the day outside the nestbox. That wasn't the case a week ago, when she was exploring non-stop. Today we found her embedded head first under some soft tissue by the side of the nest box. We coaxed her out with some honey water which she drank furiously from the end of a little cardboard stick. (It's actually quite a privilege to feed her directly.) After that she did a quick mini-tour of the tub and then went into the nest, so we killed the lights to encourage her to stay in there overnight. 

So - her pattern of behaviour has changed and although she doesn't seem weaker as she moves around, she seems to rest a lot more. BCW compared this to any human who gets old and needs to rest more, falls asleep in the armchair and so on!

I guess she has a point. 

House on fire

I think before writing this update it's useful to recap where we are with our indoor bees. All of our indoor bees have been rescued from the garden - all of them have had some kind of wing problem which has prevented them from being able to fly. This means they can't feed unless they were to stay in their own hive.

But I learnt my lesson with the first one, trying to put her back in the hive twice. An hour later she was back out again on the lawn, destined to prey or die of starvation. 

So, we created an indoor environment to house our disadvantaged. It started off as an ordinary ice-cream tub but has pretty much evolved into a full scale incubator with indoor nest box, infra-red heating and "daylight" lighting. And of course, 3 video cameras! 

indoor "incubator"

So, at the time of writing we've had four disabled bumblebees come into care. In chronoligcal order (often the best), they are as follows:

• Holly - confirmed female - very small, missing left wing and left middle leg, and twisted body
• BLB ("Big Little Bee") - confirmed male - now deceased - same missing wing and leg as Holly
• TLB ("Tiny Little Bee") - unconfirmed female - actually just slightly larger than Holly - 1 broken right wing
• LBB ("Little Bigger Bee") - unconfirmed male - one missing left wing

We added LBB to the "incubator" last week and discovered that he got on really well with Holly - neither of them moidered each other. Since then LBB has been very busy in his new world - scooting from the nestbox to the outside and back again with regular fervour. 

Meanwhile TLB was in isolation in her own tub as we monitored her strength. It's hard to believe that this miniscule creature has recovered from a state of apparent death to darting around her box, climbing on lavender and feeding herself from the natural nectar rather than the honey water we freely provided for her. As her strength obviously continued to build, we took the decision that it was safe to introduce her to the other bees with some initial supervision. 

We are pleased to say it went very well, and just like LBB she has spent her time chasing round the big box, often in the footsteps of LBB. (Apologies for the picture quality - it's an iPhone screenshot from Skype over 2G!)

LBB and TLB explore together

Also like LBB, she has (at least initially) developed  a routine of coming in and out of the nestbox itself to explore the outer surroundings, and then head indoors for some relaxation and recovery. Quite often, in fact, this seemed to be in synchronisation with each other. At one point LBB even tipped TLB upright when she fell over on her back. What a wonderful thing to see. 

Finally, here's a picture of all three inside the nest box, getting along like a house on fire.

 3 bees in a boxWe are really hoping, that since bees are eusocial, allowing them to co-habit will actually be beneficial for them and help them develop or carry out their meaningful roles. So far, so good! Though I do wonder what chaos tomorrow will bring!

Down but not out...

It's been a busy few days with more bees coming into care. There on the grass was a stranded bumble - still - silent. 

It looked liked it was a bufftail or vestal cuckoo and on closer inspection it had both wings - but the right one was damaged - sort of "folded". 

found on the lawn - damaged wing.Of course, it couldn't fly. Actually, I say of course, but this is not necessarily a given. There are reports that bumbles can fly with as much as 50% of the wings missing. But that's "edge damage" as opposed to "structural damage" which what we have here. Little bee can't, for example, join the front and rear wings together with her special "hooks", owing the bend. And that's another thing, we're not 100% sure she's a girl or a boy.

The ice cream tub was summoned and duly mossed and honey-watered. And for a while it was looking good, even though when she tried to take off she managed only a slightly sustained hop. Not being entirely sure of her constitution and origin we decided on an overnight quaratine before contemplating addition to the main indoor nest, occupied by Holly. 

We were glad about this decision. The next day came and little bee was less well. Slow, lethargic and by mid morning unmoving, keeled over, with all the memories of the untimely death of BLB. We took her indoors to wait the long 24 hours that we felt we needed to be sure. 

Thank goodness we did - the next day some signs of life. A little twitching; antennae probing; sufficient energy to drag herself away from the heat of the laptop, though not to consume any drink. In the end BCW accidentally spilled some honey water on the kitchen towel and finally little bee quenched her thirst. With new energy, she heaved herself onto the moss and bedded down for the night, while we moved the tub over Holly's infrared lamp. This maintained a temperature somewhere safe around 24 degrees. 

After another night, she still had life signs, though barely impercetible. Perhaps if she was humanoid she'd be four score and twenty; creaking at the joints; wheezing and failing. Still, she dragged herself around the tub a little. She's a brave fighter. And we, the helpless spectators. 

The morning was further punctuated by the finding of another invalid by BCW. Racing across the grass, with only one wing to show for it. BCW came to the rescue and before you could buzz, this biggerLittleBumble was in a care ward of its own too. Same protocol: isolation and quarantine to begin with, for the safey of all concerned. Now, biggerLittleBumble is more energetic, but again is doomed never to fly. All that energy has to be worked off somehow - racing round the box is one way; perhaps he's a boy. Boys do that kind of thing. Well, BLB did for sure, and he was a boy.

So, in total we have taken 4 bees into care. BLB passed away soon after and it seems that littleBee might do so soon. But we still have Holly (who is doing amazingly well, almost miraculously so) and biggerLittleBumble. The big question is, can they live together harmoniously? 

Bum Fandango

Since the death of BLB we made a few adjustments to the nest environment for Holly, who survives him. 

One of the key things was to start putting honey-water inside the nestbox as she rarely seemed to be coming out to drink. In fact she seemed to have reverted to "nesting behaviour" - i.e. staying inside the nestbox, guarding it, fixing it and patrolling it whenever there was a disruption. We started to think she had adopted this as a "role" and was thus destined not to come out of the box. Therefore, just as in a real nest, we would have to provide supplies for her inside the nest. 

This worked well - we provided a few droplets of honey water each day and they would be disappearing and we could hear her being active. We couldn't see her much when the lid was on the box because she spent a lot of time in an area of bad video coverage and also under the moss - but we could hear her scratching around. 

However, as time went by I was a little concerned that she was becoming more dormant - spending most of the time resting (sleeping?) under the most and not doing anything. If we disrupted her nest she would come to the entrance, perhaps outside by a few centimetres for about 15 seconds - but basically was more or less "hibernating" under her favourite patch of moss in the nest.

We thought maybe some extra heat would encourage activity as it seemed to have a postive effect when she and BLB were in the smaller icecream tub. So, we discarded the normal wooden lid of the nest box and built a cardboard one with a hole in it. Over this hole I mounted the infra red light I had bought to boost the night vision in the garden (but never yet used). This light packs some serious punch - designed to light a 20 metre square area. 

The light is doing a wonderful job of heating the box - underneath it is getting to about 30 degrees - at the far end about 25 degrees. This is perfect for Holly as bumblebees keep their nest at 30 degrees. And we can tell she loves it. First of all she spends most of her time under the light, every once in a while doing the "bum fandango" (as BCW calls it) and twirling round on the spot. 

We also decided to add pollen to the box. Although this is used to feed larvae in the nest (a source of protein), there is a role for the nest-dwelling bees to make this happen, and they make "pollen bread" for this purpose by mixing pollen and honey. We haven't been disappointed - Holly has shown great interest in the pollen (even though she didn't when it was in the original ice cream tub). We can't quite tell what she's doing with it, but on occasions it looks like she is pushing little pollen balls around and possible making them or breaking them up. Tonight we saw her standing in the pollen, drinking honey-water, then heading into the pollen to scratch around.

She also spends a lot of time scratching at the floor (as shown in the videos). We don't really know what this behaviour is - it seems really pointless, but then I wondered if this is what she would be doing if she was helping new bees to be born - trying to scratch/break them out of the waxy pots. 

The thing is, we are using "bee logic" to figure out what to do and to make sense of what we see. We make the assumption that Holly will behave most naturally as if she is in a nest if she believes she is really in a colonised nest. And so making her environment as nest-like as possible means getting the temperature right, the contents right, the food source right and so on. I truly think we are now managing to get those parameters as close as we can realistically expect to (in a nest that is inhabited by one bee). Consequently she is carrying out the type of behaviours she would do in a real nest, even though she doesn't realise how fruitless they are.

What I'd love to do is add some "robot" bees to the nest, to see how she interacts with them :-)

Upsizing

Just over a week ago we found a second disabled bee - "Big Little Bee" as we are calling him. We added BLB to the same tub as Holly, but within 48 hours we soon realised this was a bit small and together they were causing chaos, going from this:

before: organised box with moss on one side and flowers nicely arranged..

to this:

moss moved shunted all over the place, flowers cast aside!pretty quickly. And although after 24 hours they were co-habiting amiably, they were still disrupting each other a lot, walking over one another while the other was sleeping, shoving each other around. Not to mention the fact they were not getting true darkness in the way they would be if nesting underground; is it really fair to expect to adhere to our human cycle?

So, we had the idea of migrating both bees to a much larger tub - large enough, in fact, to include the entire wooden nestbox that was now redundant in the front garden. The plan was also to include some real flowers/plants, e.g. lavender, so that they could get as close to a natural experience as ever. So, the design of the box was as follows:

• A layer of stone to stablise the box and provide a foundation to embed plant pots and slightly sink the nestbox to prevent the bees going underneath it
• A layer of "fake grass" over the stone to protect the bees - made from hanging basket liner. 
• real lavender
• pine cones to climb over (and as it turns out, rest under)
• some tubing to climb through and rest in
• daisys to carry honey-water (as previously)
• "flower-tower" and "flower-mountain" (also to carry honey water as previously)
• White LED lighting strip to provide additional "sunlight"
• HD USB webcam for local monitoring and remote monitoring over skype
• The original nestbox from outside, complete with 2 internal infra-red cameras

Here are some pictures of the setup:

overall tub set upview inside nestbox - cameras visibleBLB resting at the box-edgeinside the tub - honey water on daisies and "flower tower"BLB resting again!