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!

Going Potty

Yet more infrastructure changes this Sunday. Really we are just taking every possible opportunity to create a nesting environment that a queen may explore. 

So, I added some upturned flower-pots (with some tubing underneath) under a mound of cut grass.

You can see I've designed some very obvious "holes" - created by cutting the top of a 2 litre soft drink bottle, feeding the tube into it, and part filling them with the grass. The contrast should make them easy to spot.

Next, I simply just turned one of our blue plastic boxes over and did the same trick with the tube. We've noticed some queens being attracted to the blue (stands to reason, as they are attracted to ultraviolet).

I was also delighted that a load of tubing (off eBay, of course) arrived. This is 3cm diameter"cable tidy" and it will be used simply to keep the CCTV cables tidy and safe (and us inhabitants for that matter). 

I noticed also at dusk just how "fluorescent" our Hi Viz flags were, so just a quick picture of those. No wonder the bumbles are attracted to them!!

Final stage: nestbox tech

It was phase 3 of the "Pilkington box" preparation today: installing the tech!

All our nestboxes and the beepol lodge are fitted with at least one (in some cases two) miniature CCTV cameras. They are small and discreet and have a built in microphone and infrared lighting - which means they can essentially see in the dark. They allow continuous monitoring of activity in the box, including the potential for motion detection. 

The other item to fit is a thermometer - the readout is external to the box, but a wire runs inside the box to sample the temperature. 

spy camera in nest box

Here's a wider view of the finished article. 

This is how the box looks located at its final site against our garage wall. The red filter is effective at allowing a view inside the nest without creating disturbance to any resdents. I haven't decided where to mount the thermometer yet. 

installation site for pilkington box

Next is the series of entrance tubes we have fitted. We have three boxes and five tubes. The idea of the tubes is to create a more natural looking entrance and also trick the bumblebees into thinking they are going underground - which of course is especially important for Bombus Terrestris (Bufftailed). 

We have tried to make the tubes look like holes in the undergrowth so that the bumbles we see them easily when scanning the garden for nest sites (of which we've seen several doing). 

entrance tube 1

Entrance tube 1 is for the left hand box. The coloured marking is to attract attention - we have noticed that the high-visibility tape is very successful at attracting bumbles. It would also provide an easier landmark to memorise should a queen check the box out and want to come back later. There is a small amount of old used mouse bedding in the entrance to create an aroma that is also appealing.

entrance tube 2

Entrance tube 2 is for the Pilkington box. This one is facing more directly upward so that it's more easily seen from a height. 

entrance tube 3a

There are three entrance "3's" - left (a), centre (b) and right (c) - as they are all connected to the right hand nestbox. This helps us try a few different designs of entrance. 

entrance tube 3b

entrance tube 3c

Finally, here is the full setup of nestboxes against our garage wall. We've trimmed the nearby grass to make the entrance tubes stand our more easily, but left some grass uncut so that the bumblebees are attracted into the garden in the first place to look for a possible nest site: they do seem to like searching over the uncut grass on the lawn.

We also have some "fake flowers" made of the yellow tape & canes to attract attention (not shown). We've seen several queens now flying from one to the other figuring out what they are. We've created a row that leads them down to the entrance tubes. We'll experiment with this to see what effect different arrangements have and whether it has any effect on queens looking for nests, or whether they don't combine forgaging behaviour with nest searching. 

the full nestbox setup with 3 boxes

We have lots of plants not shown in the picture which are now in bloom, including a Kilmarnock Pussy Willow, which seems to be very popular! But round the boxes we've put white and purple heather - the bumbles are very attracted to purple. 

So, aside from having some low-level radar ☺,  we have a pretty good setup to try and study the garden nest searching behaviour.

Thru-Tube

Although deceptively bright, it was very chilly outside today (about 8C max) and raining on and off - so we didn't expect much bumble activity. So, I planned to complete some infrastructure changes instead.

This consisted of abandoning our "cloche" nest site following the death of QB2012-02 for a new strategy (we'll use it for growing tomatoes, peppers and strawberries - the bees will love that ☺). The new strategy is to relocate the nest box along our garage wall and create a tube system to provide entrance holes amongst tufts in the lawn. Indeed, we saw 3 brave bumbles around the house and garden today looking for rest / nest sites. 

One big bufftailed Queen surprised us by doing a grand tour of the exterior of the house - check along all the walls, even windows on the top storey. It's encouraging that they will extend their search to man made locations, but what we need to do is figure out what is actually appealing to them. More is known about the natural environments they choose and how to mimic those environmens with a nest box (see the rest of this post). But less is known about how to do the same for manmade features.

Building a tube system

In order to maximise chances of a queen discovering and entering our nestboxes, I wanted to increase the number of entrance points available in the garden. This would also allow us to try different disguise/visbility strategies on the entrace to see which ones the bees favour. 

I built a tube "connector" which allows 3 incoming tubes to meet in a box, and then exit in one direction towards the nest box. When the bumblebee is in the dark tube, it is is tricked into thinking it is heading underground into our lovely warm, dry nest chamber. Total length of the tubes from one entrance to the exit into the box is about 80cm - a distance that Bombus Terrestris should be comfortable navigating to get "underground" (indeed, they should be delighted with it). 

entrance tube connecting systemThe construction is self-explanatory.

Next I filled the remainder of the box with packing material. This is just a precautionary measure to ensure there is no big cavity in the box: we don't want bumble stopping and setting up nest in this box! (There is no easy access into it anyway - it's an additional precaution). 

filled with packing to ensure there is no cavity

Then I taped and sealed the system to make it waterproof and installed it outside. 

revised nestbox site setup with "triple entrance" systemAbove you can see both our nestboxes with their entrance set ups. The box on the left is completely buried under the expanding foam shelter and the entrance tube extends out to the lawn, just bottom left of the heather by the leftmost high-viz cane. 

The box on the right is as yet unprotected (next job!) and the tube extends to the splitter box just behind the potted grasses on the right. The 3 tubes extend as follows:

1. left of the 2nd heather in from the right
2. between the 2 grass pots on the right
3. to the right of the rightmost heather pot

Here's a close "bee's eye" view:

bee's eye view of entrance holes

Note that we are trialling different marking arrangements - does a high visibility marking improve or decrease atttractiveness? 

entrance on our second nestboxFor completeness, above is the entrance hole to our left-hand nest box. Surely a queen would spot this and want to explore it! 

Queen Capture

We are developing revised tactics for the capture of queens so that they are less stressed and more inclined to explore and stay in the nest boxes. To that end, instead of using jars to capture them, we have built these tubes (kindly suggested by George Pilkington) that can be placed over the queen while she is exploring a hole in the ground/undergrowth. It is totally dark, which will keep her calm, and while she is in it, she is more likely to think she is still underground. Then we can carefully bring her back to the nestbox and introduce her with much less trauma. 

The red window allows us an additional check to see she has climbed into the tube - bumblebees do not see deep red light.

bumblebee queen capture tubes 

We are looking forward to trying this once the weather picks up!

Bumble infrastructure & Beepol modifications

A busy day today. Busier than the bees, as it was cool and windy, so I only saw one Bufftailed queen foraging on our heather. Meanwhile I was completing off all our "infrastructure" preparations - namely the nestboxes and CCTV. 

I've created a "photo diary" of what I did, which included some desired modifications to our beepol lodge - I hope fellow bumblers will find them useful. 

beepol lodgeAbove is the beepol lodge with last year's modifications - namely the extension to hold the external entrance camera. You can also see the new wax-moth entrance flap, which screws on as an attachment. This is new for the 2012 season. Everything else about the lodge is standard. 

bumblebee nest boxesAbove our our other two nestboxes. These have had various modifications from 2011 and one of them we can now add sugar/honey-water to from outside. I prepped them internally last week, but needed to check/reset the cameras and install thermometers. 

On the right is my fake "hill" - it covers the next box and can be placed up against a wall to disguise it. The idea is to make the bumblebees think the box is underground. We put lots of plants and grasses round it to add to the effect. 

fitting & testing the internal entrance cameraThis year we are putting two cameras in the lodge rather than one and thus placing them slightly differentlt. This camera above is trained directly at the entrance hole, and indeed can see right out through it - so I think we'll get some cool shots as bees come into land and come through the entrance. But also, the other reason for placing it this way is so that we can use the movement detection on the DVR to more reliably count bumbles in and out of the nest. 

2 cameras installedAbove 2 cameras are now installed - one will point down more into the nest so we can see activity below. They are quite fiddly to place and also to decide the best view when there is no nest in the box - but I have to assume that two cameras will be better than one! The other wire dangling down is the thermometer: more on that later. 

embedded thermometer on bumblebee lodgeThe next job I undertook was to embed a thermometer in the extended entrance porch. This was no easy job - it took the best part of 90 minutes to disassemble and drill/file out a hole and get it all back together again without breaking it - it's quite soft wood. But I'm really pleased with the result. The thermometer wire runs through a hole in the back and into the second lodge entrance which would otherwise be blocked, and is attached inside to measure the ambient temperature inside the nest. It's going to be a pain if the thermometer dies or needs its batteries changing, but so be it! I tried many variations of attaching the thermometer to the inside and outside of the lodge, but this is the neatest and also the thermo is visible to the external camera, which is a big help when reviewing footage. [That's a top tip from last year: it's very useful to have the temperature visible on camera].

view from external entrance cameracable tidy at rear of lodge

The next job (above) was to start tidying up the cabling at the back of the lodge from all the cameras. Some tacked-in cable clips do the job and makes the whole process of moving the lodge a bit easier and safer. 

sealing the edges against wax moth Next I attached some velcro along the edges of the box base. This is only the "loops" part (softer) and not the "hooks" part: we don't want the box to stick together, we just want all the imperfections and very slight gaps in the wood sealed over - the sticky-backed fabric is perfect for this. 

creating a bumblebee sizing chartAnother feature we wanted to add after last year's experiences was some kind of "sizing" chart inside the box, so that when bees move across the field of view we can get some indication of their size. This is useful for understanding whether they are queen, boy or girl, or under-formed etc. And also for indentifying the bee when there are only a few in the box. I discovered the graph paper didn't show up well on the camera, so i first marked all the corners in black pen. But that didn't show up on the infrared, so I had the brainwave of poking a hole at each corner and mounting the graph paper on some diamond grade high-visibility - the result is excellent under infra-red. 

view of size guide in daylightglowing "dots" on the size chart under infraredHowveer, when the lodge is closed and the camera switches to infra-red, the high visibility backing creates a series of glowing "dots" at 1cm spacing. This will be perfect for assessing the bee sizes as they enter and leave. 

base for the beepol lodge and shelterFor the base of the lodge this year we are using an old plastic board, with some extra high vis tape for grip. Also, the bees will be able to use this bright colour to memorise the nest location very easily, so if we needed to move it around the garden a bit, they should find their way back in ok! We are using this base instead of putting the lodge directly on the stones, just to help a bit in situations where bumbles fall from the nest, so that they don't get lost or buried in the stones directly underneath.

a nestbox in situ - with its "disguise"Above is one of the completed nest boxes on its site. It is partially buried and disguised by the expanding foam shelter. More grasses and heathers to come. We wil not interfere with this box and just hope that some nest searching queens explore it and choose to use it. You can see it also has an embedded temperature guage. 

The beepol lodge in situ, showing thermometer workingAbove is the beepol lodge in its intended location. The thermometer is working a treat! The shelter is not strictly necessary but we are just shading the box a little and also protecting it from rain. The bricks are greased round the side and help to keep ants from getting into the nest. 

both east-facing nest sites: beepol lodge and disguised nest box

internal layout of 2nd nest boxAbove is the internal layout of the 2nd nest box. This box has two cameras for greater coverage and i've created a tube at the back to supply food. This could allow us to keep a queen captive if we wish to try and oblige her to brood. The food would go down the tube into the pen lid attached to the side of the box. This box will be sited south facing at the rear of the garden and will be less disguised. This is the one we'll use to try and brood any queens we capture that are nest searching.

I still have to repatch all the video on the DVR in my studio to get all the right cameras coming up on the right channels with the right names, but apart from that we now just need to wait for the queens to start nest searching in earnest! 

Declaring Bumblebee season 2012 officially open!

Well, nature waits for no-one! Not for us and not for the Bumblebees!

It's only a few months (November) since we saw the last of our bumblebees. Sadly the remnants of our own colony died, but elsewhere Queens were busy hibernating. Winter was unusually warm this year, with only a couple of short cold snaps and the latter weeks of February have been very mild here in East Anglia. 

The trigger point was Thursday 23rd February, when temperatures reached about 15C here (and apparently 18C elsewhere) and lo and behold out came the bumblebees!

I was privileged to spot (and photograph) as many as half a dozen on the two heather plants at our front door, which are in full bloom (and were chosen specially for the job). There were two Tree Bees particularly interested on that day. Today ambient temperatures were a little lower but still enough to create lots of activity, not just from bumblebees but from honey/solitary bees too. Ambient temperature was about 12 - 14C, but the temperature on our south facing house wall, where the bees love to warm up, was a sultry 29C! Today we saw mainly bufftaileds. BCW and I disagree over whether we saw a white-tailed bumble as well: it was certainly more lemony, but I don't think the tail was white enough. So, we agree to differ. There are not a lot of flowers 

More excitement was created at the end of the afternoon as BCW saw one of the bumbles leave the heather and head into the flowery undergrowth near to our lavender. She burrowed down in there and didn't come out - so we know she is sleeping in the border just by our front door. I'd love to see her come out first thing tomorrow! 

So, this is the trigger for us to get busy preparing for the 2012 bumblebee year; and there is plenty to do:

• clean the beepol lodge and spray with Certan (anti-wax moth treatment)
• fit the beepol anti-wax moth flap
• "un-fit" and re-site the nestboxes that were placed for hibernation (and not used)
• start sorting out and re-routing all the CCTV (and consider drilling through the wall instead of using the window)
• replace faulty equipment (especially thermometers)
• fit a feeding system to the nest boxes

The work is well under way - here's what we've done and plan to do:

Beepol Lodge

We are re-siting the lodge to a less shady area of the garden, though still west-facing; we have to find the right balance of light, shade and temperature, bearing in mind the longest/warmest days. We are sitting the lodge on an old plastic sign, which will provide a good level and a safer area for bees that fall off the lodge (previously they fell in amongst the gravel/stones). We are also going to

We've sprayed the lodge again this year with Certan as an additional preventative measure against wax moth, as well as fitting the new flap system supplied by beepol. This system screws onto the existing ledge and has a plastic flap that wax moth cannot navigate - however, the bees can learn to operate it. 

Also this year I am going to fit 2 cameras inside the lodge so that we can see activity at the entrance (brilliant for counting bees in/out of the nest) but also see down into to the nest to see how it is developing - this will help eliminate the need to check on it by opening it so often. Also, we will fit a thermometer, which we didn't get chance to do last year. I've order the same "fridge" thermometers as last year as they can be surface mounted and I plan to drill a hole in the lodge to do so. 

Nest boxes

Even though we will buy a live Beepol colony again this year, we will still also provide nest boxes for "wild" queens, should they choose them. Last year we tried very hard to get wild queens to nest by capturing them and adding them to the nestboxes. One stayed three nights, but none of them actually stayed to nest. We will try a similar strategy this year, though not as intensive. We have come up with a different system for keeping Queens in the box - rather than trap them in there (a strategy we eventually abandoned) we have got a "greenhouse cloche" (about 2 feet high) that we can put over the box. That way we can include plants/flowers next to the box and let the queen fly and explore within the cloche, whilst restricting her to a small area. We hope this will be less stressful for them and leave them more inclined to choose to nest in the box. 

As ever, the nest boxes are equipped with internal CCTV cameras and also need new thermometers. I have also drilled a "feeding hole" into one of the boxes, so that we can add sugar/honey-water into a small holder on the inside wall of the box. This was something we wanted but didn't have last year when we kept some queens temporarily captive. 

We have put a small amount of dry moss and brown hamster bedding in the boxes (a smaller amount than last year, based on our observations of the live colonies and the space they need). We know the bees manage very well with the hamster bedding. 

One box will be sited south facing, the other east facing against our garage wall. We wil probably slightly bury the east-facing box and use my expanding foam "disguised" to make it look underground and just leave that box be, to see what happens and whether any bumbles choose it of their own accord. If any do choose it to nest, we will need to come up with a wax moth strategy!

Camera Work

There is plenty to do on the tech front also. Really for the CCTV system I now need a 16 channel DVR, but for now I will stick with my Quad box and 4 channel DVR which together allow me to use 8 cameras. It's just about good enough to get started, but unfortunately limits my ability to use motion detection to 3 key cameras. 

The other big consideration is whether to make the wiring more permanent and route the cables through the house wall, rather than via a window. I'm still debating whether to go ahead with this as the hole would have to be quite big.

The other addition to the camera arsenal is, of course, the new Canon 5D MkII. I've been testing that the last few days with a ring-flash for macro work and also my existing 80mm macro lens. The camera is already proving better because it can shoot longer bursts than my old camera and at significnantly higher resolution; although it would be nice to get a few more frames per second from it :-) 

Anyway, we are making good progress in getting prepared, though time is of the essence as the Bumblebees are already coming out of hibernation and will be looking for nests soon!

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. 

Bees like Buses

We were rudely awoken by the bin-men today and it seems our overnight Bufftail was too. BCW went downstairs to make some coffee and check on our guest and she was starting to stir. Within about half an hour (8.30am) she was up and away. It was threatening (and turned out) to be a beautiful hot day, so who can blame her. 

My plan was to make some box modifications, which I did and will cover in another post, including the rationale. 

I decided to go out at about 2pm to see if I could locate another Queen - having a resident bee, if only for a night, is rather addictive. And, if we are to house a colony, time is of the essence as most Queens will have managed to find a nest by now. The exception is likely to be the Carder Bees, which emerge a bit later from hibernation; we are now starting to see more Carders and fewer of the others (showing nesting behaviour).

I'd been out for about 45 minutes and was returning home along a ditch embankment when I was rewarded with a Carder Bee searching for a nest site. I threw myself into the ditch with wild abandon as we have never yet managed to catch a carder and I was determined to have a good crack at this one. I was successful. (BB24)

BB24 - Common Carder - if only the iPhone did macro photography properly!

I brought her home and we decided to try her in the front nestbox, mainly because it is the best equipped with video. Carders are supposedly less fussy about the exact nature of the nest-site too, so we felt we might be able to get away with it at the front (non-garden) site. 

She went into the box pretty happpily and did not show any frantic signs of searching to get out. In the end she stayed about 20 minutes, fairly near the entrance, then crawled up the tube and took off. Nothing special with her take off at all, no navigational circling or anything. This was pretty much as we expected, especially trying to introduce her to the box at that time of day - we didn't realistically imagine she would stay.

We then left it till 6pm-ish to go out to find another bee that we might get to stay the night. This time BCW found another Common Carder (BB25) and was able to catch her - two in one day! It goes to show how they are increasing in activity at the moment. BB25 is very vibrant in her gingery colour. 

BB25 - common carder - again, iPhone #fail on the focussing!By this time I had made some significant external modifications to both boxes - basically to add internal and external tubing (to simulate crawling underground) and a new "docking" arrangement for our collection pot. This would allow the bee to more easily be directed into the box and for it to experience a 15-20cm crawl into the box through a dark tube - more like crawling underground.

BB25 was very obliging too, going quickly into the box. The newly installed inner tube leads the bee slightly to the right and she tottered off in that direction, right into good view of the infra-red camera. She poked around a little from side to side, as if to establish the basic width of the space, but not as if she was looking for the entrance/exit again. Then she burrowed a little under the bedding, before picking a spot where she stuck her head down into the bedding and basically went to sleep.

We watched fairly closely for about 90 minutes, as it was still light and warm outside (about 18 degrees) and we felt she still might leave. Every so often she moved up and down a little, adjusted a little, but then rested still again. Part of this activity, including some up-and-down repetitions with her abdomen, could be related to her "breathing" which is thought to occur in bursts every 20-30 minutes.  

BB25 bedded down for the night, face first!The redtails got a look-in too

It wasn't all a "Carder" day. While out looking in the evening the first bee I spotted was a redtail queen. I followed it under some trees and it darted into a hole in the mud. I thought I could easily catch her there and that she was definitely in the right place to be hunting for a nest site. After 30 seconds when she hadn't come out of the hole I began to think maybe this was a nest site. Then when I saw a baby worker bee emerging from the hole, I knew we had found a nest. (And by the way, that baby worker was so cute!)

Redtail nest site - hole under some treesThe hole is in some dried out mud under some trees and about 3 inches in diameter. I'm actually quite intrigued to understand how the hole got there and what it's like underground; wishing I had an endoscopic camera!  This is exciting because it means even if we don't get any nesting in our own nestboxes, within 60 seconds of the house we'll be able to observe the comings and goings of this nest. 

At the time BCW was catching her Carder Bee, I was heading to meet her having found nothing, and then quite unexpectedly saw a redtail bumbling around in the long grass; I couldn't believe my luck, thinking we might have two bees staying the night, and I was able to catch her quite easily. As soon as I had done so I was quite suspicious. She was a bit longer than the redtail bumbles we have caught and her tail had less hair. She basically looked longer and more scrawny. And, although her legs were hard to examine properly through my glass pot, they didn't seem to have the long hairs on them. I came to the conclusion she was a cuckoo bee. 

 BB26 - redtail cuckoo beeBCW agreed with me; you can see from the picture the general lack of hairiness that is associated with 'regular' bumblebees; and look at those crazy long legs! - she basically seems like a poor copy. It's good that we are both developing our identification skills, as we do not want to introduce a cuckoo bee to our nest to find she comes back later and destroys a developing colony. So, with a certain sense of achievement, we let her go.