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. 

Powers of Invisibility

LBB (LittleBigBee) has been motionless for well over 24 hours now. We will give him a good send off and return him to mother nature later - after I've taken some macro photos to confirm he is a boy. (The easy way to tell is count the segments on the antennae; though photographing them in sufficient detail is quite a challenge). We had him only for 8 days, though of course he may have been older as his wing-loss looked more like damage rather than deformity. Still, it's such a short life, which seems to make it all the more saddening.

Yesterday my neice, who gave Holly her name, decided that Lucy would a nice name for TLB (TinyLittleBee) - we wholeheartedly agreed, although we have also yet to confirm her gender. And, to be honest, her pattern of behaviour is more male-like.

Something didn't seem right yesterday evening though. It's always been easy to find Lucy in the tub because most of her time is spent exploring the "outdoors" and she goes back into the nest box to rest for a while and then repeats the whole pattern. Always on the move.

But last night we couldn't find her.

This happened before with BLB (BigLittleBee) - he developed a routine of resting under one of the pine cones in the tub. He could get under there so tightly that he was impossible to see no matter how hard you looked. And his buff banding provided wonderful camouflage.

I was certainly convinced there was no way Lucy could be under there. I must have scoured those pines cones with a torch for 15 minutes. In the end, we carefully removed them to check. Lo and Behold! Lucy was indeed tucked right in under there, completely invisible to the outside world. It was great to find her safe and seemingly well, although, in a sense, odd that her behaviour had changed. Although we saw BLB do this and are also convinced that some of our outdoor bees spend the night away from the nest on occasions (either by being caught out by the weather, or some mad last-minute dash to get pollen in the fading dusk), it is highly unlikely that Lucy could be "caught out" in this environment and run out of energy. So why the change in behaviour?

She roused, drank from a daisy-honey-water-combo we placed in front of her, then toddled back to the nest box straight away. In a sense that was a relief, but on the other hand I felt something ominous.

This morning she is not in the nest box; for some reason during the night she has come out again and, I suspect, hidden under the pine cones, summoning all her invisibility powers in the process. We've chosen not to disturb her yet, if she's there, but something is not right. I just sense that something is off-kilter today with Lucy. I can't help but think she is actually a boy and thus destined as BLB and LBB before her.