Expanding on the Expanding foam

It was a great day again on Sunday so I took the opportunity to wield the expanding foam again. The plan was to do two things:

• modify our "triple 3-into-1 tube" set of fake entrances to be covered in moss and look more realistic - with the entrance holes much more vertical standing so they can be seen easily from above. 
• create an additional nest site from an old poster tube - the idea was to site this amongst the longer grass where the bumblebees have been nest searching, to make it look like a mossy embankment. 

It was all very easy - I've documented the steps in pictures below.

First i made a cardboard base for the "nest tube" and covered it in "bin bag" plastic. The plastic will go face down, to stop the cardboard getting damp and rotting. The top side will be protected by the expanding foam. 

I separated the two ends of tube by packing it with moss and a little hamster bedding. To create a slightly different environment, favoured by different species of bumbles I put a little more bedding in one end and stones in the other. 

contents of one end of the tube

As an extra precaution I fed 10mm tubing into the end of the pipe, to create extra ventilation (and potentially an inspection pathway). 

ventilation & access tube

I stuck the pipe to the base with gaffer tape. As ever I included a thermometer, down into the centre of the tube. Soft drink bottle bases cover the ends. It ended up looking like some kind of crazy bomb. I can assure you it's perfectly safe. ☺

assembled nest tube, with thermometer, before foam is added

Next the fun (and messy bit) - cover the tube in expanding foam. As is started to dry (about 15 minutes) I spray painted it dark brown (mud / earth colour). Looks like a nice cake! ☺

nest tube covered in expanding foam

As it continued to dry, but still a little tacky, I covered in moss, collected earlier in the week. 

moss layer completed

The placed amongst the longer grass. Not sure how I can make it any more real than this, other than actually digging up the lawn! The dark patch on the right hand side is of particular interest. 

final site of nest tube in long grass

Next, the same trick for our "3 into 1" tubing, which goes to a nest box. I made a cardboard wedge from an old box and waterproofed the same way. Note, I poked drain holes along the tubes. 

3-way tube being prepped for foam

Then the foam, as before. The two uppermost pipes are fake.. they are blocked off - just there for additional effect. 

foam added

Again, spray painted brown, then the moss added while tacky.

triple tube, covered in moss..

Here's a view of the two systems in place along the central line we have created down the garden. Bumblebees like to navigate along linear features, often edges (e.g. gravel / grass edge, or crop edge). Our flags and long grass creates the linear feature (and actually shows some signs of working!).

tubes in situ, leading to small nest box

Close up of the 3-into-1 tubes. We are experimenting with one yellow entrance. We do not really expect interest in this, because the Queens tend to think it is a flower, not a hole. But the experiment will see how rigidly they stick to this basic understanding. You can see the nestbox that the tubes lead to. 

close up. 

Finally a view of the entire feature.

full setup - with clear linear featureOur next job will be to simplify the clutter along the left of the picture - the edge is not sufficiently defined and we think the plants (mainly heather) are too close to the nest areas. We'll move them to the cloche area and again try to create a strong linear feature along the lawn edge.

BCW saw 3or 4 queens nest searching in the garden today. They had slightly improved interest in our setup, but not enough to fully explore any of the entrances. We'll get there!

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!

Pattern Matching

So, we finally came home and were able to examine the mayhem created by our two disabled bees in their plastic tub. Actually when we saw it in person, as opposed to the limited remote camera view, it probably wasn't quite as bad as it seemed. That's not to say they hadn't moved loads around, but it seemed to be slightly more organised that we imagined. 

Organised? That's not a word we've been applying to Bumblebees! 

Here's (more or less) how we left the box:

original layout - the moss is all along one side of the box

The easiest way to describe what they'd done was move moss away from the edges and corners towards the centre. What's not obvious is the cause and effect - whether the movement of the moss is merely a result of the endless patrolling of the perimeter of the box (e.g. a security or escape motivation), or whether the intention is to collect the moss centrally by wearing a path round the edges (i.e. keep the edges clear with a fixing/nest building motivation).

The box as we found it after the bees had it for 48 hours

We surmise there is a possiblity it is the latter - and that the bees are programmed to keep their nest material away from the edges of the nest in order to keep it dry. Certainly we have read this as advice when preparing a nest box, which would mimic what would happen underground. 

Is there method in the madness?

So, although much of their behaviour seems quite erratic, every once in a while it does seem to follow certain patterns. I'd classify these as:

• Traversing the perimeter, although often this involves traversing part of it, then returning to a designated "safety spot", more centrally located
• exploring outward in a "hub" fashion from said "safety spot" - i.e. heading out to explore a portion of the box, then returning (or partially returning) before tackling the next segment
• circling the same area, usually in fairly tight circles. When this behaviour is done on in amongst the moss or nest material, it moves it and creates the tunnels and "whorls" that (for example) we've seen the Queens create in bedding. It also creates the space in the corners. 
• Sticking the face in the moss and the bottom out/in the air - this seems to happen when one bee wants to ignore the other (e.g. appears to want to rest without disturbance) but there are also other times when they are resting. In a way it seems quite a vulnerable position, not being able to see any threat, although the sting is foremost. Also, the camouflage of the bands works in their favour and perhaps they just need a bit of dark once in a while. 
• There are times when they seem to take turns with role swapping - for example, one bee will be taking a rest, buried in the moss while the other is scurrying about circling the box and the moss. Then after 15 or 20 minutes it will approach the rest bee and prod it and shove it and basically wake it up! Then it will tend to take over the scurrying and "nest fixing" behaviour. Although Holly (the smallest) was the main protagonist ("agitator") to begin with, we've subsequently seen both bees demonstrating this behaviour. 

 I was keen to do some experiments, for example to see if they would exhibit these behaviours with different materials, with different box orientations and layouts. However, it's difficult to devote the time to study this with sufficient scientific accuracy, so we can really only report anecdotal observations.

Moreover, events have taken over us, in that we've now moved the bees to a larger habitat - more on that on a follow up blog :-)

Here's a little bit of exploratory behaviour...

Mass moss mess

The one thing you discover when you start rigging CCTV all over the place is this: there is never enough. 

I wasn't at home today, so I was reliant on checking our two home-bound disabled bees via skype and an HD camera in their tub. The setup works brilliantly actually and the Microsoft HD camera is superb quality. But, there are always blind spots in the view which need filling with other cameras! 

The view this morning in the box was crazy - mayhem had occurred in the small hours with moss being tossed all over the box and flowers with honey-water cast aside with abandon. I was a bit concerned, actually, that all the food supply might have been destroyed. It was made a bit worse by the fact I was viewing the iPhone the wrong way round so not all of the picture was showing: which gave the impression that the camera itself had been moved, which was really quite incomprehensible!

"Big Bee" (not named yet) was going a bit beserk every time I looked - it wasn't really clear what was going on. Was it looking for a way out of the box after 36 hours of reasonable calm? Was it hungry? Was it resorting to some sort of "nest fixing" behaviour (I use "fixing" in the loosest possible sense). Don't really know. 

For a while we were concerned for the whereabouts and welfare of Holly - until eventually I saw her; and again periodically throughout the day. At about 6.30pm she was on one of the flowers for a good 10 - 15 minutes, hopefully having a good drink of whatever was left. I managed to grab a screen shot from the iPhone.

Holly having a drink from the daisy. Moss everywhere!

Overall she was pretty calm today from what I could tell - certainly not prodding and shoving "Big bee", at least while on camera. So, a slight change in behaviour. I wonder if "Big bee" had been exerting a bit more dominance? Certainly the way it was racing round the box and leaving chaos everywhere was a change in behaviour too. 

I really don't quite know what to make of today's behaviour - it was all a bit frantic and at times a little concering; and only a closer inspection once home will reveal more of what has been going on and whether out two bees are co-operating or not.

One of my thoughts is whether the moss has been moved to the centre of the box (this would mimic the structure of the Koppert Hive we have outdoors) - which would be a truly fascinating discovery if it has: our first real evidence that our bees are organising their environment as they see fit.