Stuck in an ice-cream tub

So, a little update on "Micro Bee", whom we rescued last weekend. Well, she is now known as "Beatrice" or "Bea" and was named by my niece Chloe, who also named Holly (our disabled bee) and Fifi (our original Koppert Queen). 

So, a quick recap: we brought Bea indoors after watching her leave the nest and walk across the lawn (only a few feet) but not succeed in flying. She is absolutely tiny - about the size of a small fly - but perfectly formed, at least visually (i.e not missing limbs, all the right colours etc.). However, her wings are slightly bent and we think this is the reason she doesn't seem to fly. 

I honestly can't describe how small she is - here is a picture of her in her tub to give you an idea:

little Bea - trying to get her to fly

So, we've followed the same routine we did with Holly and BLB  - both of whom were disabled and couldn't fly - and kept her indoors in a small ice cream tub, with some materials to explore and a supply of known/safe honey water. 

We tend to her regularly but try to allow her to experience natural daylight hours. Every day we take her out (as above) and give her the opportunity to try and fly, but has not tried to do so. There's no real excuse for her not doing so at the moment, given the unnaturally warm temperatures we are experiencing (about 29 degrees C), so she could easily get up to temperature. 

It's not ideal keeping her indoors and we are debating whether to try and return her to the nest. The problem is, if she wanders out again without our supervision, she could easily get lost on the lawn and run out of energy and/or quickly become prey. Quite simply, she is just not equipped for life outside the nest. 

I have the following concerns keeping her indoors:

• could it be affecting her 'mood' - there is evidence from honey bees that their disposition can be affected by negative events, to the extent that they show signs of "depression" (altered behaviour states and less persistence, i.e. giving up more quickly). I would hate it if this was happening.
• Bumblebees are basically social creatures; their behaviour a jigsaw piece in the bigger colony system. So, by being away from the colony, both the isolated bee and the colony could be affected. Quite simply, Bea cannot fulfil her role or instincts if separated from her siblings. 
• Does it change her behaviour patterns?

Actually, we have pretty strong evidence that behaviour patterns are changed, not just from Bea but from holly  et al. we kept indoors before her. The first 24 hours is spent in a very active and exploratory phase, as you would expect. when given the chance to explore (e.g. taking the lid off outside) they try to escape (or at least explore beyond the boundaries of their confines).

Then next few days this really calms down, essentially coming to a halt and there appears to be a sense of resigned stillness. There is little activity, often they hide under the moss and seem to spend a lot of time "sleeping". This is very much like a "low mood" creeping in, having learnt their surroudings and discovered they are alone and trapped. 

Over the next few days they then appear to become "masters" (or mistresses I suppose!) of their environment. A strong sense of territory and defence appears to develop. At this stage, opening the tub is greeted with warning signs, such as raised leg. As the days go by this becomes even stronger with different levels of warning - the final stage being lying on the back with sting pointed at you. What's more, the response at this stage is instantaneous; without a moment's delay the bee throws itself onto its back and warns with its sting. It becomes very protective of its food supply, which leads to more warnings as this is topped up with a syringe.  When taken outside and given the opportunity to explore/fly, there is no apparent interest in doing so. Indeed, the behaviour at this stage is now attending to and defending the nest/environment with no requirement for exploration beyond those boundaries. 

This is the stage that Bea is at, so trying to get her to fly now seems completely fruitless and adds to the dilemma of whether she is now so conditioned to her tub environment that trying to return her to the nest is counter-productive.

We've only had a Bea for a week so that's as far as her behaviour has developed; but, of course, we had Holly for much longer and saw these patterns develop further, such that warning signs subsided and indeed there was a complete acceptance of intervention with the food supply.

Indeed, eventually Holly learnt that the syringe meant new food and would come to get it even before we had chance to administer it. She was also completely happy drinking while we were topping up. Quite remarkable really. She also went into a much more intense "nest fixing" mode, constantly working at the nest. Rarely she would come out of the nest to check the immediate surroundings then return. Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly) she was stimulated by other bees and was far more active when they were in her environment. 

Anyway, that's a summary of some of the behaviour - I intend to produce a more detailed write up in due course. 

Back to the nest?

If we do add Bea back to the nest, there are two key risks. The first is she simply just starts to explore again to discover her new environment and ends up tired and lost outside of the nest. The second is that she tries to perform like her tiny siblings, one at least of which has been collecting pollen. And befalls the same fate. So either way the outcome is the same. 

tiny bee working to collect pollenPurely for interest, above is a picture of one of her equally tiny colleagues on the way out to collect pollen. This wonderful miniature bundle of bumbleness has been busy foraging and managing to find a source of lovely bright orangey pollen - possibly late flowerign lavender (of which we have some). She comes back with her legs buckling under the 'vast' quanity she has collected. 

She's actually one of the most active bees in the nest and she (or an identical looking sister) has the role of some patrolling and nest checking, especially at night. When we opened the nest for a quick look last night, there she was scooting round the perimeter of the plastic box ensuring everything was safe; with a little warning fizz on occasions just to keep us in check. 

She may be small, but she's taken on a big role. 

Going Micro / Eviction Day

Yesterday was a bit of a mad day with the nest - so much so, I was finding it hard to review footage and collect data while also keeping an eye on live activity.

The big anticipation of the day was whether Big Mamma would make a break from the  nest or not, but as it turned out, despite the cardboard step we introduced into the nest for her, she was still unable (or unwilling) to leave. 

My hunch mode had been kicking in too, regarding the possibility of yet more new hatching going in. My hunches are starting to become pretty reliable!

Yet another slow start again for the colony today, although the temperature was ridiculously mild for the time of year - we are being predicted a very warm week ahead. So much so, that by mid morning there'd been no sign of "stop out" bee returning; marking yet another shift in behaviour patterns.

For reasons that will become evident by the end of this article, I decided to stop trying to track and count each and individual bee - as it's now become too onerous to unqiuely identify them. In fact, I've completely lost count of how many of each size are really alive in the nest, as each day there seems to be evidence of additional bumbles that may be leaving and not coming back. These, of course, could be males.

All all I know there are 2, possibly 3 baby size (the smallest we'd seen to date), one big mamma queen size, one very large almost seems queen sized  that keeps catching me out and anywhere between 1 and 3 mid size, of which our "stop out" bee was one. But there is still "mid size" activity today, so even if he/she has gone, there are others. 

Going micro

Late morning I decided to review the day's CCTV so far when my jaw dropped. There in the nest was the most miniscule of bees I have ever seen. She was even smaller than Holly (the disabled bee we cared for). My hunch had been right. 

She was also exhibiting the now-classic newly-hatched behaviour: exploring the nest and entrance but not venturing out yet. Here she is, compared to the size of a regular soft-drink bottle top in the middle of the picture.

first glimpse of brand new tiny beeIt was almost unfathomable that she could be so small and beautifully formed. I estimate she's about 1/4 to 1/5 the size of big mamma - that could make her about 1/100th the volume!

Soon she came out to the entrance and I  watched live with great anticipation as I prepared to see her first flight. She came out onto the ledge turned and then started exploring that too and then up over the roof of the porch. This is the moment I hate, as there is slippy tape and plastic on the porch which many an uncertain bee has fallen from. She too befell the same fate, slipped and fell to the ground. I dashed out to find her and eventually after much searching spotted her:

I managed to get her back into the nest, for now; and she sat in the entrance, still, letting all the other bees walk over her! 

While all this was going on Big Mamma was still making some failed attempts to get through the join between the lid and the base. I tried to encourage her to the entrance hole proper with some powerful lighting from outside the nest - it's where the light is that she is going for. This didn'twork for her, but it did seem to bring a few more nest lurkers into view. Amongst them was yet another tiny bee. I was truly astonished, but there was no doubting it - both of them were there together on the CCTV inside the nest. 

There may even be three - it's hard to tell exact sizes from this photo, but there is one tiny one in the bottle top (centre), one very small one above it, and the original tiny one in the entrance top right. 

3 extremely small and previously unseen bumblebees all together

Eventually one of the tiny bees came back out to the entrance and started climbing all over the shelter. This is a bad sign. This is what happened with all the bees we had to care for indoors - basically they never flew. Sadly, I think this tiny wee one is destined to the same fate, So now we have her indoors in a tub, fed and being kept warm. She can crawl and run with great pace and agility, but so far has not taken off; indeed, one of her wings is a little bent, and this may be her disability. 

Forcible Eviction

 I was barely recovering from the excitement and shock of dsicovering three microscopic bees when another smallish one emerged from the nest. It seemed to be carring something - at first I thought it was pollen, but a review of the CCTV shows it was in fact some kind of larvae. (UNHAPPY FACE). Even more astonishingly, we watched on as this bee perfromed nest memorisation. Her first trip!! Sent to eject an unwelcome visitor. 

She returned 10 minutes later. At the time, watching live, I was baffled by what I was seeing, because she spent a lot of time almost "reverse memorising" the entrance before she came in. Indeed, she spent longer flying round it on the way in than on the way out.

On reviewing the CCTV, all became clear: she dashed out carrying a larvae to get rid of and wasn't really able to conduct a typical memorisation procedure due to her wriggling payload, which needed taking away from striking distance of the nest quickly. She did the bare minimum required to memorise the look and location of the nest and then took the larvae away. On return she found the nest site ok, but she had to examine the front in more detail to establish the exact entrance. So, she essentially reversed her tracks to find her way back in. Truly Awesome first flight!

But get this - she was carrying some pollen. Yep, in the short 10 minutes of her first flight, used to eject an nest invader, she also took the trouble to go and collect some pollen. Now, ifthat aint commitment. 

Two hours later, we saw another similar eviction:

larvae being carried from the nestlarvae being carried from the nest - front angleIn the second picture in particular, you can see the larvae quite clearly hanging from the bee's mandibles. I timed this trip and it was more or less exactly 2 minutes. It's safe to assume that she can fly at 10 metres per second (I have timed them at well above this), in which case her outward trip of 1 minute would take her 600 metres away from the nest. Let's call it half a kilometre. Pretty impressive.  

Of course, the bad bad news here is that there are some kind of larvae in the nest. I don't know what type they are or how many. We have seen the occasional fly in the nest and a small moth the other day - either of those, I suppose, could be candidate mothers. I hope so much it is not wax moth - but we will probably take a look inside tonight to see if there's anything we can spot. Not that we can do much of course if we discover more. Certain is supposed to kill Wax Moth larvae, but whether we can spray it into a live nest is another matter. 

It's going to be an "interesting" evening..