Scratch the hatch

We're still being plagued by wasps attacking our bumble nest even though the brush on the beepol hive is preventing some of them getting in; some of them are smart (or at least persistent) enough to break through and find away in. 

We hastily tried a plastic flap stuck to the box and very quickly reversed that decision as it was clear it wasn't fit for purpose. 

The key issue is that the entrance hole on the lodge is set back from the resting ledge and tucked under the roof, close to the side; there's no space to create anything sophisticated.

So, at the weekend I decided to try a design that extended the hole (using is wedge of wood with a hole drilled through it) and stick the flap to that. It worked a lot better, and certainly kept the wasps out, but so too all the bees had a bit of trouble with it: in most cases we ended up helping them in and out. I didn't want to take any risks over them failing to get in and then deserting the nest.

So, tonight I began my third attempt. This time the plan was to build a complete fascia to mount onto the lodge, with a tube to the entrance behind the fasica, and then an entrance vestibule with sloping (i.e. gravity powered) plastic flap. It was quite a lengthy process to build, just from cardboard and some plastic cut out from packaging. Here's what I built:

 

We tested it tonight - and although the fit is good, we discovered the first problem: it's useless in the wind! Flapping wildly, a brave wasp managed to easily get inside the nest (although heaven knows why it was out in such inclement weather).

So, wracking the brains for the next design.. 

Handling Royalty

It's been a  busy fortnight tending to our new Beepol bumblebee hive. The weather was pretty inclement for our new bees to begin with, so it was a slow start for them.

In a way that was quite useful as it gave us chance to set up their lodge properly and get all the CCTV relocated and working (which meant, for example, tweaks to motion detection).

There was not (and has not been) a huge amount of activity from the nest over its first week and I wasn't really sure whether this should be a concern or not; the hive was supposed to have about 30 - 40 workers but I wasn't sure if being towards the back end of the "season" whether this number could be lower (it obviously was). In fact, by the time I got down to analysing our CCTV footage it looked like about 6 - 10 active workers; more on that later.  

We've actually made quite a number of interventions over the week so I'm going to highlight them in here and leave going into them in detail in due course. I've also been in contact with the expert at dragonfli (who supply the Beepol box) who's been answering some questions and providing some helpful information, so in due course I will fill in with some of his relevant information. 

Here are the things we've had to do over the last two weeks:

• bury a new queen - possibly the first queen out of the box - she was unable to fly
• cut the lid off the beepol box to allow room for the nest inside to get taller
• begin tracking detailed activity of workers and queens in/out of the nest (with a view to assessing its decline and queen emergence) 
• adding foam (steps) into the nest and honey (to help build reserves due to lack of workers) 
• later we had to fix the foam as the bees (quite incredibly) moved it
• resuce a tired, cold and wet worker and put her back in the nest
• deal with a wasp "invasion" - robbing the nest of honey
• produce the video from the CCTV that captured a Redtail male mating with one of our new queens
• trying various "trap door" designs on the front of the lodge to replace the "brushes" system
• complete the CCTV with the max number of cameras as we prepare for hibernation season

 All of these have had their own little saga, and time has got the better of me, so I'll deal with them in a few separate blogs.

New Queens

We were establishing the nest and lodge over the weekend of 1st August, which meant making some tweaks while the bee nestbox was already inside. Gulp! One of the adjustments was to the brush system which was slightly out of optimal position. The other was to remove the "flightpath" camera as it was not proving any value on the current lodge location and to relocate it to the wall of the house (looking side on) as well as fit the "entrance camera". The entrance camera provides the motion detection at the nest entrance (see below)

entrance camera mounted on lodge

It was after I had completed this work, with the utmost of care, that a bedraggled-looking Queen slowly emerged from the nest. 

Queen emerging

I cannot begin to tell you how my heart sank when I saw this. Not knowing any better my first instinct was that our queen had come out of the nest - perhaps to check on what the rattling and vibrations were. She looked bedraggled and tired - so it was a natural conclusion. We hoped she was just checking the nest integrity and would return inside, but she didn't. She dragged herself over the roof several times whilst we willed her to return. Then she fell off the edge of the roof and landed below the lodge against the greased bricks.

This wasn't ideal, but at least she was safe, so we sat and watched her, hoping for an opportunity to rescue her and get her back in the box without the risk of getting more grease on her. But it was not to be, she stayed there for about 3 hours getting progressively weaker. We came to the conclusion that whether or not she was our original queen or a new one, she had come out of the nest to die. Eventually by moving the bricks, we were able to scoop her up and place her in one of our other nestboxes where we could monitor her on camera. 

We did so over the course of the evening by which time she crawled and tucked herself into the inner entrance tube (this is designed to trick nest-search queens in spring that the nest is further underground than it really is). She stayed there and overnight passed away.

Our first emerging beepol Queen - who sadly never went further than our back up nestboxOnce we had retrieved her I took some macro photographs. It was clear from our close up analysis that one of her wings was damaged (creased) so we wondered whether she would have been able to fly at all. She seemed very weak when she came out of the nest - maybe she had been stuck in there without really being able to feed. We don't really know.

A Royal Entourage

Although it was sad to see her go, by the next morning our spirits were well and truly raised the next day by the emergence of another two queens.  We could tell they were new by their circling/memorisation procedure as they left the nest. And oh my! They were big! We've become accustomed to seeing tiny workers all season, so seeing a queen twice the size is quite startling at first! 

I started tracking activity over the course of the week and what became obvious was that more queens were emerging while the number of workers were declining. Reviewing CCTV showed 2 new queens emerging on the first day and then 3 on the second day. This was amazing! 

We were thrilled that our nest was fulfilling its destiny: producing queens to go off and mate, hibernate and begin next year's new colonies. It was really quite a touching moment to realise the "circle of life" had not suffered the devastating interruption that befell our Natupol colony. At last we could feel that keeping the bees had not just been a pointless exercise but at last we were contributing to, hopefully, their growth in numbers. 

We've counted a few more new queens over the 2 weeks we've had the box, but it seems as though lodging in the nest are about 4 or 5. It's hard to tell as their may have been some large workers, certainly to begin with, but their numbers have declined to, perhaps, 1 remaining. 

So, there has been a whole new process of study and learning with our new queens to understand this particular part of the bumblebee lifecycle. One of the most surprising things we have learnt is that we have multiple Queens inhabiting and co-existing in an otherwise-dormant nest. We presume that the "Mother" Queen is now dead (indeed, she may have been the one that came out and we tried to rescue). We also saw one very faded looking bumble in the box, which may have been our tired and overworked matriarch and who is no longer visible. 

So, here we have four or five queen bumblebees, treating our lodge as, well pretty much a travelodge: a place of security, warmth and safety to spend the night and rainy days, while otherwise going out foraging and looking for a mate.

This is all new territory for us, so we don't know what to expect of their behaviour. With that in mind, and with a view to trying to keep them resident as long as possible (partly to buy me time to build some "hibernation spaces"), we have tried to make their stay as comfortable and stress-free as possible. This has meant:

• trying to ensure that wax moth is kept out of the hive
• trying to ensure wasps are kept from robbing their nest honey reserves
• minimal disruption to the nest; we look inside at most once a day, under red light (invisible) at most for 30 seconds - since the nest is not being maintained by workers we need a supervisory role to check for any problems, such as infestation
• providing additional honey reserves into the nest if their own stocks appear low (strictly speaking this is not recommended due to the possibility of introducing disease from another colony; however, our queens only need to take this honey if their own reserves run low - e.g. after several days when they can't forage. In which case, we take the view, better to give them a chance to survive than perish from lack of energy and nutrition.) 

If anything, we're now putting a lot more effort into "managing" the nest, because it is not being managed by the colony and is more-or-less an empty "shell" that could turn into somewhat of a "biohazard" if we let nature's forces simply take over immediately! We've already seen a few flies, for example, showing an interest and getting inside the nest. 

Something we never expected to see happening was Queens bringing pollen back to the nest but we are certain we have observed this - here's a composite from our CCTV that shows the comparison in size between a worker and a queen, both with pollen:

size comparison of worker & bumblebee - both returning with pollenYou can see the queens bring a huge amount of pollen back on their legs and we can see it appearing in the nest. We take a comparison picture each evening inside the nest and we can see where the pollen has been deposited and how much was collected during the day. 

There's more to life than eating and sleeping!

Of course, our Queens are not programmed merely to rest and forage all day, but now to find a mate. We know that one of them at least has managed to do so, although it was perhaps not as successful as she intended! Our CCTV recorded one of our Queens flying back to the nest with a male Redtail in tow! Not only that but she dragged him (perhaps reluctantly!) into the nest where he emerged 20 minutes later. He came back 3 more times to investigate too: on one occasion getting back into the nest, but otherewise thwarted by the brushes (what can you say, he's a boy, perhaps not as savvy as our girls). 

Here's a still of one of his return visits, quite clearly a redtail:

male redtail revisiting the nest after mating the previous dayHere's the video of the full sequence:

 We don't know whether she would have realised it was a Redtail, so we can only hope she would have gone out at a later date to find a successful (bufftailed) mate. 

Settling In, looking in

A busy day of "project work" today, helping the new beepol hive to settle in. 

One of the main jobs was for me to finally complete the CCTV setup. I've used essentially the same configuration as previously:

video tech: click the image for a fullsize version

The CCTV system is more than mild form of passing entertainment - it has actually become the mainstay of our hive setup, providing the means to monitor the safety/progress of the bees and also provide research data about their behaviour. The main job today was to  fit the "entrance camera" which monitors the entrance and exit holes and is able to trigger motion/detection and recording. The mini camera is also infrared equipped so it can detect any activity at night (e.g. wax moth lurking). I mounted it on a small wooden beam "no more nails-ed" to the side of the bee lodge:

IR entrance cameraIt gives a great view of the entrance holes and in particular, during these early days, will allow us to check whether he bees are able to navigate the "anti-wax-moth" brush system. 

The full lodge setup now looks like this:

beepol lodge technology and camera setupThere are two external cameras (as seen above) plus one inside. A spray painted takeway box glued to the wall provides a convenient junction box, a-la "chocbox" - and protects the CCTV connections. The thermometer has yet to be mounted in the box, but that's something we have to do when we next open the lodge (which will be planned to encompass several jobs, including improving the seal between the base and the lid).

I am still contemplating putting a second camera inside the lodge to get better coverage of activity but for the timebeing we're at the limit of our CCTV system. However, I have also ordered a CCTV switcher from eBay to try. This will enable one of the camera feeds to actually support for cameras on a sequence, effectively extending our system to support 7 cameras. I've gone for the cheapest (simple) switcher for now (<£20) however I did contemplate a full 16 channel processor which would allow all manner of camera splits, picture in picture and motion detect. However since that would then provide for up to 19 cameras into one 4 channel DVR I felt I would soon quickly become frustrated by the mismatch in the system and the inability to record exactly the way I wanted to. So, my decision for now is to see how it goes with the cheap switcher and consider a 16 channel DVR as an upgrade for next year. 

I also tidied up the cabling (currently 5 cameras/cables being run round the garden) and routed some of it through some cheap "pipe foam" (for insulating pipes). This is cheap and easy to work with - though in full course I will install proper trunking. There is not much point switching to wireless cameras because the cameras still need power routed round the garden!

Wax Moth & Infrared

The additional external camera on the lodge further raises the spectre of whether the infrared has the potential to attract wax moth. I've done a little more research on this but there doesn't seem to be readily available conclusive information. The main text discussing how moths are atttracted to light and infrared is a book from 1972! It must be out of print because secondhand copies of it are about £70! Moths are attracted to flames and one theory is males are attracted because the infrared emissions from the flame are like the pheremones from the female. (Can't quite compute how 'light' is equivalent to 'smell', but there you go). 

It doesn't really matter if we attract males, because obviously these will not lay eggs in the bee nest. In general, however, evidence and experience seems to suggest that it's the ultraviolet end of the spectrum that tends to attract the moths (in common with most insects).

However, we don't want to leave anything to chance; so I decided to rig up the extra infrared light I was using indoors (to heat and light Holly's nest) on the garage wall to see whether anything is attracted to it. I also made another two wax moth traps (coke bottle with a hole in it, filled with vinegar, sugar, water and banana peel) to place near the light. Over the coming evenings we'll whether we catch anything.

Entrance Brushes

We are following the beepol advice to add brushes (made from paintbrushes) to the lodge entrance/exit holes. However, we are introducing them slowly by not fully sealing the entrance for the timebeing. The idea is to train the bees to use the entrance holes and get used to the look of the brushes and pushing their way past them whilst slightly ajar, before having to actually push right through them. From what we've seen on the CCTV they are not too keen at pushing through the brush when fully 'closed' (unless we have it too stiff) although we have seen one or two attempt and achieve it. So this is something we will monitor carefully over the coming days. 

We tried to follow the Beepol instructions for making the brushes but found it all a bit messy and that with one piece of tape holding the whole thing together, the bristles would just fall out and it was impossible to get it to a thickness that seemed strong enough to prevent a moth edging its way in. So we came up with a system of multiple layers each taped together. This worked well - possibly too well if we find the bees can't get through it! We'll report back on the final working design.

initial "brush design" for wax moth protection

Sting Operation at Grand Opening

Excitedly we took delivery of our new Beepol bumblebees on 28th July. It contained a colony of (according to the literature) about 40 worker bees, a Queen and an established nest of Bufftailed (Bombus Terrestris Audax).

This certainly seemed to be reasonably close to the truth as the nest is visible through the clear lid of the internal 'hive'. We also took delivery of the special "lodge" that can be used to house and protect it. It all came together in a large single box delivered by the courier. Initial observations are as follows: 

• The bees are delivered by Citylink - a company of which I have a very low opinion, unfortunately. I honestly dread to think what treatment the bees have to endure when in the care of a non-specialist courier. As it was we saw the courier nearly lose grip on the box and tip it over, which over course could be disastrous for the nest. I do not think Citylink is a good choice of transport for such a precious load. 
• The bees are not packaged to anywhere near the standard and level of thought of the Koppert system. The Koppert hive comes in a cardboard box that is stapled to a large chipboard "w" shaped palette. It seemed cumbersome at the time but we realise now that it serves two very useful purposes. 1) The palette can actually be used as a mounting platform for the bee nestbox in the wild (although we used bricks). 2) The palette provides stability to the package and makes it almost impossible to turn over, either accidentally or out of sheer stupidity (e.g. by not realising which way is UP).
  In contrast the Beepol box was marked with two "this way up arrows" and a "caution: live bumblebees" sticker. Frankly I doubt most couriers even read that. Also, there was nothing by way of ventilation in the packaging. So, I'm not ashamed to admit that my first impressions were of a lower quality product (for a higher price!), with less detailed design attention than the Koppert equivalent. Hold that thought.
• The lodge itself is a very aesthetically pleasing piece of equipment. Much smaller than you might imagine, and a lovely piece of 'furniture' to have in the garden. It's made of cedar but doesn't appear to be treated so we will do that later at some point to ensure water-tightness and longevity. 
• Some aspects of the lodge are well thought out: there is a nice shelf by the entrance for the bees to rest on, and a slot at the back to run a camera wire internally (which is perfect for my needs). We haven't tested its stability to wind, which is something we must do. 
• Other aspects of the lodge are less good: one of the corners did not join particularly and despite me trying to tighten the screws, this was not sufficient - so there is a small gap we have to fill. The same is true of the 'trueness' of the lid, which also has a small gap along the front. We are now paranoid about wax moth being able to enter through any nooks and crannies, so we plan to stick the 'soft' half of a strip of velcro to this edge to create a good seal. 

Preparation

We did not install the lodge and inner hive straight away. Instead BCW first sprayed the hive thoroughly with Certan solution (using 10mls plus 190mls water). This was enough to drench it thoroughly. Certan is a biological larvicide for wax moth, so it is one line of defence we are putting into place. It's probably of limited use as it is unlikely we would get wax moth laying eggs on the wood of the lodge (more likely to go fully inside the plastic hive). But after recent experiences we are taking every precaution we can.

At the weekend I had prepared four bricks already with grease. These provide a solid base for the lodge and the grease prevents ants being able to access it. My job now was to equip the lodge with CCTV. I decided on a similar set as with the Koppert: one camera internally, one along the flight path and one watching the entrance. I fitted the first two to the lodge, which was a lot easier than the Koppert box as I could just screw them onto the wood. The views are rather different but I will discuss that in a later posting.

The entrance camera is going to be a problem as there is nothing to fit it to, so I will solve that later. 

The other thing we had to do was fit brushes to the entrance holes. This is another line of defence agains the wax moth, as suggested by Beepol themselves. We had a quite a palaver making and fitting the brushes and again, I am not confident in the security of this solution; but we have to try. 

final installation of the lodge

The lodge was all prepped and checked by about 8pm, so we decided that rather than leave the bees cooped up all night we'd give them some opportunity for fresh air and to acclimatise to their surroundings, on the basis that they probably had around 90 mins flying time still available (all my previous measurements coming in handy there). This was a case of adding the plastic hive into the lodge then releasing the special flap keeping them secure. 

That was when the trouble started. 

Release the Bees!

It is worth point out that the Beepol box comes with something called the "Beehome" system. What this means is that the plastic hive has two entrance holes. However, one is protected by a special "one way" flap that means (theoretically) the bees can only enter the box through that flap.

This system is put into action by shutting the main hole and leaving the one-way hole open. In this way the bees can return into the hive but cannot get out. You would do this when you need to collect the bees up, e.g. because you need to spray surrounding crops; or if for some reason you need to move the hive completely. You let all the bees come home, and stay stuck in the hive. 

The hive itself is basically a moulded plastic tub with all the required nest materials and food supply inside. It gives the impression of being much lower quality than the Koppert box. In a way it stands to reason: the beepol box is very much aim at gardeners and hobbyists, whereas the Koppert system is much more "industrialised", designed for farmers and crop-growers. It is therefore more robust and is more "one click" to use.

As soon as we had a close look at the nestbox itself, we knew there was a problem: there were bees trapped in the "one way" entrance. We took a quick decision that we had to release them first. Unfortunately that released half a dozen or more, because the one-way system was clearly not working, the bees were wedging it open. They were pretty angry and agitated and we didn't want to hang around too long to get stung, so the plan was to open the other entrance, close the lodge lid and then clear off! There was no point trying to consider a "controlled" opening of the main entrance using the supplied foam bung, as by this time bees were already freely emerging, so speed was of the essence. The trouble was, they were now landing on the lodge edge, making it impossible to shut the lid. This of course had the effect of keeping them exposed to light and thinking the top of their nest had been ripped off, so this just caused more agitation to the bees. The whole situation was self-perpetuating and rather stressful for all concerned!

So, it begs the question: what went wrong with the beehome system?  It has to be said the construction of it seems a rather flimsy affair, again inferior to the Koppert equivalent (which is almost too good, as some bees wouldn't get through it the in the proper direction, let alone the wrong direction!). What I suspect actually happened was the courier didn't keep the box fully level - well, actually we know that for a fact because he mishandled it retrieving it from the van and let it tilt sideways.

Behaviour of the Bees

We were quite concerned that the bees were getting out of the box with the lodge lid up and thus not using the proper lodge entrance holes. This wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the brushes that were now fixed to the box.

 DIY brush "system" in place on front of lodge

I felt that if the bees hadn't learned to push their way through them from the inside in the first instance, they may return to the box, find the lid replaced and no obvious entrance and they may not figure out pushing through the brushes. So as soon as the right moment presented itself we lowered the lodge lid. 

Although some of the bees flew off doing their customary "circle navigation" as they learnt their position some of them were rather lethargic and crawled onto the lodge lid and also onto the grass. This started to become a concern as by now the light was failing and we were worried not only about stepping on them, but also that if they were too cold to fly, they had no way of getting back into the box for the night. As much as possible we tried to pick them up carefully and place them back onto the lodge lid or entrance shelf and in the main this was very successful. 

Then it happened...   

One of the bees tried to sting BCW through the suede gardening glove. It didn't reach BCW but within a few minutes we realised that the sting was trapped in the glove fabric and the bee couldn't release itself. It was getting very stressed and tugging to try and get away and at risk of doing itself some fatal damage. We racked our brains to think how we could resolve this. We cut the finger of the glove off, which allowed more freedom of movement but didn't help to release the bee. We then cut as much away of the glove as possible, hoping that maybe we would see the sting on the underside of the glove and could tease or press it out. Again, this was fruitless, the sting didn't come all the way through the glove. 

The sun had now set and the light was very poor (I'd actually been in London all day and not eaten a single thing and it was now 10pm) and we were both getting a bit stressed out and upset by the situation, as this poor wee bumble, through no fault of her own, was destined to die if we couldn't release her. I knew that the only solution was to cut through her sting, though BCW was initially reluctant to let me do so - given that we neither had precision tools, nor did we really know what damage or pain our bumble would incur. But on the other hand, when faced with death, drastic situations call for drastic measures. And so it was agreed. 

We very gently prized the glove material apart a bit and exposed as much of her sting as possible, without actually ripping her abdomen off. I then got my extremely sharp stanley knife and very very carefully slid it towards the sting, as far into the glove as I could manage and made a gentle incision. She was free. 

Clearly traumatised by the whole affair, our bumble didn't go anywhere, just clung to the remnants of the glove finger. We placed the whole thing quickly into the lodge lid area and closed it again - we could from this point onwards monitor her on the CCTV. 

first image from inside new beepol lodge

I'm pleased to report that she seems to have survived and recovered from the whole incident - though I'm not so sure if we have!

So, a word of caution: Suede gardening gloves and bumblebees are not compatible. They offer fine protection to humans, but are perilous to the bees. 

Anyway, in order to end on a high note, here are some of our new bumbles emerging for the first time:

Plan Bee

We are thrilled to have ordered a new bumblebee hive before the season is over!

After the demise of our Koppert Hive, we thought that would be that until quite by chance we discovered the Beepol range from a discussion on the Bumblebee Conservation Trust Facebook page.

Unlike the Koppert solution, which is mainly an industrial solution marketed and sold to farmers and growers, the Beepol system is very much more aimed at the home gardener and bumblebee enthusiast. (Sadly this is also reflected in the pricing with retail prices being higher than trade prices and the involvement of the retail "middle man")

The main hive is very much like the Koppert system, with a plastic inner nest and outer cardboard box. It is slightly less industrialised than the Koppert box, which means there are pros and cons. Pros: it contains a clear lid for viewing, which the Koppert box doesn't (so no cutting through the lid to insert a camera!) Cons: the open/close of the bee entrance is more fiddly, involving a foam bung and string. On the Koppert box this is done with a clever built-in plastic slider.

In most other respects, though, the boxes are extremely similar, with similar performance. The life of the Koppert box is stated as 10 - 12 weeks at upto 50 bees, but less accurate data is provided for the Beepol box, saying it might last anything from 8 weeks to "the whole season" (march - september) and ships with a Queen and 30 - 40 bees. At this stage we'd be hoping we can get 6 - 8 weeks life from it into September.

The nice thing about the Beepol system, again differentiating it from the more industrialised Koppert solution, is it has a matching wooden "lodge" to house the hive while it is active. This is something the Koppert system does not include and why I had to go about building a whole shelter system to protect our Koppert box in the garden. (When a farmer uses it, they just stick it in the field on a palette with some polystyrene over the top).

The lodge is a lovely, reusable home for the hive, that is attractive to have in the garden and allows easy access via a hinged lid. The other great feature is room to install a video camera inside (WOOT!) that will look down through the clean plastic hive lid. This is just perfect for the 4-camera set up we have. I will fix another camera onto the front of the box to observe the entrance.

The major, major concern at this stage now is how to control the wax moth that we know we have in the garden and have now learnt of the existence of our previous bees. We will have to take every precaution possible. This will include some DIY advice from Beepol about using paintbrush bristles taped to the lodge entrance/exits to provide a screen that the moths do not have the strength to push through. I'll be honest, I'm a little concerned that this heath robinson approach might not work well as it will be hard to determine what is ok for the bees, but not ok for the moth. However, at the moment Beepol say they are working on a productised solution and the DIY option is the best there is for now.

With that in mind, we have also ordered B401 Certan. This is a biological preparation that is harmless to bees, humans and honey, but will defend against the wax moth. We will spray the lodge and hive with a Certan solution. We will also seal all vents with tight webbing (which we used on our other nestboxes to prevent ant intrusion) so that there are no secret holes for moths to enter.

As with the Koppert Box we will also take precaution against ants by mounting the lodge on greased bricks. We will also have to monitor closely in the high winds we can experience in the Fens - this is why my shelter for the Koppert box was so robust, but also led to us not really examining the box once it was all in place. We will be more vigilant with this one.

All in all, it's quite a concern, but we will learn a lot and be able to share it with the bumblebee-loving community.

Can't wait to get our new bees!

Based on traditional bee hive designs, the Beepol Lodge has been hand crafted in the UK from durable timber grown on FSC plantations.
 
Bumblebee colonies do not continue through the winter in the same way as honeybees do, so each year a fresh new Beepol garden hive can be purchased and placed within the lodge, ensuring every summer you can enjoy the sight and sounds of British Bumblebees hard at work in your garden, grounds or golf course.
 
The Beepol Lodge contains one Beepol garden hive, which can be replaced with a new one when the hive comes to the end of its life and the new queen bumblebees have dispersed. It has a hinged roof for access and for viewing the Bumblebee colony within.
 
The Lodge has exit and entrance holes designed for the particular size and shape of Bumblebees and even a landing ledge for them to rest on, as they come back to the hive with heavy loads of pollen.
 
Each Lodge incorporates wooden legs to keep the hive off the ground and has an option for attaching a mini wildlife camera, so you can see your bees at work from the comfort of your home or office.
 
The Beepol Lodge is the ultimate wildlife feature for your garden, grounds or golf course, providing a fascinating permanent place of residence for your very own Bumblebee colony every summer.