Another Myster-3

Temperatures took a real dip today and yesterday - for the first time we put the heating on in the house and ambient temperature this morning was about 7 degrees at 9am. This signals the start of tough times ahead for our bumblebee colony and is close to a minimum operating temperature for them, although of course they can generate their own internal heat to keep going: but could take a lot of energy.

So, I wasn't expecting much activity today, but we still saw 21 trips to-and-from the nest, which represents a reasonable number compared to recent days. Four of these were contributed by the Queen that has become resident. In fact, to my knowledge, 2 Queens are resident, but I'm not seeing much of one of them. 

The active Queen hasn't brought pollen back for the last two days either, even though workers have. I don't have a great explanation for this. If she's ready to keep her brood warm, we would expect to see her staying the nest full time. Maybe she is doing that now and maybe it's the second queen we are seeing on her trips from the nest - perhaps mating behaviour, or hibernation-spot searching. We just can't be sure. 

What I can be sure, is that for the last few days two queens have been in the box overnight - they must have been, because I've double checked the CCTV going back about 5 days and can match all the exit trips with entrance trips. So, if the trips cancel out, then by definition there must be the same number of Queens in the nest at the end of the day as at the start. And I can work that logic (and CCTV footage) back until the point where they were both confirmed in there together.

That makes today's discovery even more suprising - another Queen showed up. I have no footage for when she might have first left the nest, so it means one of two things: she is a third queen that has arrived from somewhere, or there has been a tech malfunction. 

To be honest, I find both hard to believe, but the tech malfunction moreso (I know, imagine that!) BUt there are three cameras with motion detect all running on the area where any bumblebee would have to leave the nest. The sensitivity and settings have all been fine tuned and working beautifully for months. There are no errors reported on the DVR and no breaks in footage and no video-loss alarms. All seems well in CCTV land. 

So, that leaves the explanation that she is a third queen. I'll admit it seems odd, she seemed able to make her way straight into the box as if she knew it. Later a Queen left and returned - I can't be sure if it was her, but that Queen did not need to do any memorisation - so if it was her, then it means she has been here before. 

In which case, maybe it's one of or August queens returned to shelter?

Threedom

Last week I wrote two installments about the Queens that had started visiting our nest and this in an update about them. 

To recap, last week we spotted a boy exploring around the lodge; and the next day a 'foreign' Queen (i.e. not from our nest) started visiting our nest. Shortly after another queen arrived too. We didn't know if they were looking to mate or hibernate; we didn't know where they had come from or where they were going. But it was fascinating to watch. 

Well, another week on and there is more to report. 

The first excitement came five days later when both Queens stayed overnight in the nest. This was a mystery - that they had both abandoned their usual nightspot and, indeed, that they were prepared to cohabit. Perhaps they were orginally queens from our nest back in August? Maybe that makes a difference?

Over the next few nights one or other or both stayed in the nest overnight - it seemed like one of them at least had adopted it as a new home. I was still trying to get my head round this and understand what was going, not knowing that another shock was in store.

That shock was to discover that one of the Queens was starting to bring pollen back to the nest.

 3rd generation queen collecting pollen

How could that even be possible? For the queen to be collecting pollen would imply she is brooding and collecting the first pollen needed for her pupae. Could that really be true? If it is, it would mean that a third successive colony is developing in our nest in the same year, which seems quite remarkable to me. Sadly, of course, there is no real time left for this colony to succeed before the winter and indeed, there is very little pollen available. And the bumbles are having to work hard to find it. 

We have to bear in mind that we are now half-way through October. The bumblebees' normal active lifecycle is quoted as being March to September. Of course, one might expect some seasonal and local variation, with activity extending perhaps before and after those date; but that would be the ongoing/existing activity, not a whole new lifecycle beginning. 

Perhaps that's not what's happening; maybe something else is going on. Possible theories: 

• It's not a queen, just a large worker and for some reason she's adopted our nest
• She is a queen, but isn't brooding, but as above, for some reason has reverted to basic pollen collecting behaviour, adopting the existing nest
• She's not a queen from another nest, but one of our 5 or 6 that was born in August, returned for some reason

 I just don't know and it's something I need to investigate more to find out if this type of behaviour has been observed before, or whether this is something unique we are seeing. 

Either way, I was starting to doubt myself and doubt the fact this was a queen. I was confident that the two large "visitor" bees that turned up 10 days ago were queens - they were both sufficiently larger than our remaining brood and had all the right features and proportions. I thought maybe somewhere along the way I'd lost track, maybe a larger bee had joined the colony, or even hatched from within ours, and maybe that was what I was now calling our "pollen collecting queen". 

So, today, I did a sanity check - comparing an image of the original Queen with the current pollen-collecting Queen:

 comparison of original visiting queen and current pollen collectorIt's clear from this image that I'm looking at the same bumblebee, or at the very least, the same size bee. I'm therefore happier with my assertion that she is a Queen.

It turns out she is not the only Queen in the vicinity. Indeed, there is the second bufftail queen that is co-habiting with her in the nest.  

Furthermore, the lavender at the front of our house, which is having a second wave at the moment, was busy with honey bees today, as well as 3 Common Carders (at least two of them were boys) and a Queen Redtail (see video). I also saw a Bufftail Queen checking it out too. I guess they were all making the most of the sunshine. 

As I write, both queens have stayed in the nest again overnight. At this stage we dare not look inside to see what's happening a) because it's so much cooler now, the nest would lose valuable temperature and b) we really don't want to do anything to disrupt their behaviour, it being so unusual. 

updated activity chart for October

So, we wait for the next thrilling installment.