A place to call home?

We've been keeping an eye out this week for some other queens on the lavender outside the front of our house. Even though it'snow the beginning of November, there are a few remnants of some healthy bunches of Lavender.

Over the last two weeks we've seen a number of Queen bumblebees foraging on said lavender: 2 Bufftailed queens (who were there together at one point) and a Redtailed Queen. 

Our main interest was to try and figure out whether one of these was our own Queen, who has been busy foraging and trying to collect pollen. After watching for a long time where they came and went, we concluded this was not the case: these two Bufftail queens had come from somewhere else. 

What happened next really surprised us: On separate occasions, two of these queens (one bufftail, one redtail) dived off into the undergrowth where the thick bushy and twiggy remnants of the main lavender "bush" remains. The Bufftail disappeared for a minute or two before coming out and diving back underneath a few feet away. We waited. And waited. And after 10 minutes or so she still hadn't come out. We suddenly wondered, is this where she is going to hibernate?

The terrain, at a first glance, is not entirely suitable for hibernation. While it is underneath the thick bushes of the lavender, the substrate consists of loose stones with a layer of anti-weed fabric, which would prevent the queen burying herself. Furthermore, the site faces south, whereas Bumblebees are believed to favour a North-facing site (to avoid being triggered to come out too soon in the Spring). So, it certainly left us a little quizzical.

Having said there, there is the possiblity she has found a little nook somewhere underneath the paving slabs of the front path. This would be more sandy underneath and we can see even from our external vantage point that there are nooks and crannies that have developed underneath the path over time. I think this would be the best theory if she really is hibernating under there. 

There's no doubt that one of these Bufftail queens is definitely in the area - we've seen her several times on the lavender.

And the other morning she spent several hours keeping warm on the frame of the front door, just 2 feet from where we'd seen her disappear into the undergrowth. We've now put a little bit of honey water out nearby, just to see if she shows interest and allow us to see where she is hiding out. 

And yes, my front door needs painting! 

7: the lucky Clingons' number

Yesterday was another one of those days where it was showery and blustery without good warning.

The lavender is now proving such an attraction that it is swarming with bees for most of the day, and they actually seem reluctant to leave it.

So much so, that when the rain comes, they keep on foraging. We are regularly seeing the bees continue to work even while raining and sometimes quite heavily. The Common Carder bees are  the most dedicated: they will continue flying in almost anything, meanwhile their cousins begin to cling to the underside of the lavender and (especially when windy) hang on for dear life. (We've never yet seen a Carder do this: they always seem to manage to keep on going or head off home).

Yesterday the showers came and those unlucky "clingons" (6 buff-tailed and one red-tailed) had to hang on for hours.

By 8.45pm they were looking decidely miserable, their colourful bands dull, flattened and matted, and their wings so soaked that flight was impossible. They lock their grip round the lavender in the bee-equivalent of a bear hug and just hold out for as long as it takes.

We found seven and took them in a large plastic storage box to the garage where we could heat and dry them with the infra-red patio heater.

Within a few minutes the first few were twitching, then cleaning, then doing the "bum dance" (they stick their behind in the air and straighten their legs and clean their head, legs and thorax), shimmying as they do so. This is usually the sign they are about to take off soon. Sure enough, off they went, taking off in slow-motion VTOL-style.

The remainder were more bedraggled and it was a longer process. They don't really like letting go of the lavender either, even when they are warming up and drying out - it seems like an instinct for them to cling on until they are almost ready to fly. Interestingly, they each in turn made their way to the bits of gaffer tape we had stuck some paper towel down with. We checked and discovered that the temperature of the tape was greater than that of the paper towel - they do like their warmth, these bees, especially after a drenching! So, we have now also found the perfect surface for warming up chilly bees!

It was getting late - about 9.30  (official sunset was a 9.20) and we were concerned that the light levels were no longer conducive to a safe flight home. We had one tiny little redtailed bumble still remaining in the box, quite unkeen to leave. So, we filled an old jelly pot with artificial nesting material and moss and placed her on top of it, then placed it in the secure tub on top of our beehive shelter. Within moments she had buried herself so deep into the pot that we couldn't see her - obviously choosing a safe, warm dry bed for the night over a precarious flight home.

We were pleased to see that this morning she had gone - quite possibly staight back to the nearby lavender where the redtails are in abundance.

Seven rescued in one go, that's a record so far!

What's in the basket?

Today I did a little search to find out what pollen the bees outside on our lavender are carrying. So, that may seem rather stupid, but it's not necessarily all lavender - most of them have bright orange pollen, but some have yellow.

bright orange pollen in the baskets with flecks of yellow pollen all overyellow pollenIn the process I discovered this delightful little blog entry discussing exactly that topic - it contains some useful links to online resources for pollen matching. 

Lavender pollen, as it happens is bright yellow - so the second bee above may be collecting lavender pollen, the bright orange isn't. I have a suspicion that the orange is actually asparagus, as we are located very much in farming region and surrounded by fields outside of the town. Indeed, the nearest field is broad-bean, so there could easily be something like asparagus nearby; and theasparagus  crop was said to be early and good this year due to the unusually warm spring. 

Check out the electron microscope pictures of pollen - they are amazing!