Crack open the shandy?

Our bumblebees provide an endless source of fascinating entertainment - any organised/social animal colonies are intriguing to see in action in their own right, but the chaotic, bumbly nature of bumblebees adds a Chaplinesque sprinkling of fun to the whole occasion.

We've learnt so much with such observations, but some things still remain a little of a mystery. Here are some of the current ones:

1) We don't know if we have a Queen in our nest or not. We found a dead bumble outside the box when we got back from Holiday, with some pollen on her legs. Could have been a/the remaining queen. But strangely two remaining (and easily identifiable) bees in the nest are still collecting pollen and nectar. This usually suggests a developing brood, though it's hard to see how.

2) Our "nest fixer" bee only occasionally goes out to collect pollen; perhaps once a day, although she does go out more regularly, perhaps to drink. But, we've put a local supply of honey water in the nest for her and she loves it, visiting frequently (e.g. every 2 minutes) until it's run dry. Where is it all going? She can't be drinking it all? We can only conclude she is filling every available honey pot with honey taken from this supply. So, regardless of what mya be brooding, she seems driven to save for a rainy day.

3) Our "pollen collector" bee spends all day going out and collecting pollen. Trips from 15 minutes to 90 minutes are usual. Who is she collecting it for? Is she a queen? We can't quite tell from her size on the CCTV.  But, last night she went out at 4.30 and didn't come back. My heart sank: made a break for it? Killed in action? I hate these moments. 

Then, at 9am this morning she returned - only to the ledge of the nest though - and didn't go in! And off she went again! I'm at a loss to explain this behaviour at the moment, and so once again, my heart sankk. Thankfully, at midday she returned! So, a total of almost 18 hours away from the nest. Why? Where?

4) While she was gone I saw activity from what seemed to be 2 bees - both thin and stripy like our "nest fixer". The uncertainty arises because of the possibility of a technical malfunction on the CCTV which misses something like a bee coming back into the nest. That could trick you into thinking it was still out and thus miscounting another one that's inside. But these events were just a few minutes apart and I think the CCTV can actually be relied upon. So, perhaps we do indeed have a new hatchling that has joined us. That would be amazing.

The proof in the pudding will be finding when she leaves the nest and whether she performs some navigation circling (memorisation) of location.

If that happens, I'll definitely crack open a shandy.

2 Bee or not 2 Bee?

Well, we're back from a 12-day holiday in Scotland, during which time we had to leave our Beepol bees to fend for themselves. 

For a strong colony, of course, this is no issue. However, those of you following the blog will know this was not the case with our nest. Indeed, when we left the colony seemed to be down to about 4 bumblebees, of which one (at least) seemed to be a Queen collecting pollen. So, in fact, we had a "dual colony" situation, where a new queen appeared to have started a new colony in her birth-nest, before going off to hibernate. 

It was hard to tell which bees were in the nest; some were distinctive, so we could uniquely identify them. And we guaged the number by the level of activity we saw at the entrance and the various roles adopted inside the nest. (For example, one bee took entire responsiblity for arranging the bedding we added).

As a set of precautions to help the bees through any tricky weather while we were away and to encourage successful brooding (if indeed that's what was going on), we took the following steps:

• Adding extra nest-material bedding to the hive. This had proved incredibly successful a few days before, with a small worker bee taking immediate advantage and entirely covering the core of the nest with the bedding we provided. So, we topped this up. Not surprisingly, this small be again spent many hours re-arranging it just how it wanted. 
• Adding infra-red lighting below the bee lodge. The idea here was to create some extra heat below the nest area to help with keeping the temperature up to 30 degrees. We'd seen two sick/poorly formed bees emerge earlier and I was concerned about the required temperature for development. 
• Adding some pollen and honey water. This was just to give the bees a little more by way of supplies in case (quite literally) of rainy days. Of course, they drink the honey water immediately, rather than save it. But judging by the CCTV it lasted 3 days for them; every little bit helps. 
• Installing remote-reboot capability to all our CCTV monitoring. My BT hub is pretty lousy in terms of long term stability and often needs rebooting. Since it is required for remote access to the CCTV, I needed to have a system for being able to reboot the hub if it lost its internet connection. The solution was a "Phone controlled" power switch, that allowed me to dial in over the ordinary phone and turn the hub power on and off. It turned out we needed to use this during the first week. I also added an IP power switch to the CCTV system itself. Using a similar principle, I can control the power to (up to) 4 devices by logging in over the internet and flipping the power. As long as the hub is working, then I can log in and power cycle the CCTV. (Though I didn't have to do this while away). 
• Sheltering the lodge with our original hive shelter. We used the shelter from our original Koppert installation to shelter the Beepol lodge. This protected it from wind and rain and improved thermal stability. The bees seemed to cope with the change in surroundings without any problems. 
• Adding a dozen wasp traps to the garden. Although our plastic trap door seemed to have helped prevent wasps raiding honey from the bee nest, I didn't want to take any chances, as the trap was not 100% secure. I tried several designs of wasp trap around the garden, ranging from homemade coke bottle systems to fake wasp nests. Judging by the incredible number of wasps trapped on our return I would say that the Waspinator fake wasp nest is a waste of time and money. 

We didn't get a lot of time to check on the bees remotely while away, though we did see them from time to time. Mainly I looked at the event logs on the CCTV to check that there was some motion being detected (which there was) so I knew that something was happening. We didn't even really get chance to go over the recorded footage while we were away.

When we got back everything seemed to be intact, although one sad discovery was one of the bees dead outside the box, floating in some water. It's not clear if it drowned, but this seems unlikely. More that it died outside the nest and subsequent rain fell. Unfortuntely, its bedraggled state has made it impossible to tell whether it was a large worker or a queen that we suspected was in the nest. It certainly it fairly large and there is evidence of pollen on its legs so it was collecting.

It will be a great sadness if this turns out to be the queen that we thought was brooding inside the nest: while her young are still waiting to hatch, she goes out to collect pollen and supplies both for herself and for them. 

Meanwhile, the CCTV shows that there are two known bees left in the nest. They are both quite distinctive with markings and shape. One of them is busy going out every day to collect pollen, which is mainly bright orange or yellow at the moment. I have no idea where she is finding it, but she is. She is quite fluffy and large, but I don't think she is a queen. 

bedding in the nest after we returned from holiday

The second bee is a little smaller - more narrow and long in shape and much less fluffy. So much so, the abdomen shows up as distinct stripes on camera. She is extremely busy having taken responsibility for organising the bedding as well as maintaining the security of the nest. She regularly patrols inside the nest and comes out to the entrance, sometimes as frequently as every 5 minutes. This involves coming into the entrance vestibule and either coming out onto the ledge or occasionally sticking her bottom out of the trap door! 

Obviously with the bedding as it is shown above it is impossible for us to now see what is going on underneath. Our hope is that a queen is under there brooding and keeping her wax pots warm, but at the moment we have no real idea. That's why I hope it's not a queen we discovered dead. 

What we can say with certainty, however, is that our two little workers are in there and very active, making the most of their time - and while pollen is being collected we still cling onto the hope that it's for the purposes of a brood that may be about to emerge. 

7 hours to make a bed: inspiring

The dynamic in our nest is definitely changing. 

With each passing day there seem to be fewer queens. We can be certain this is one still in there; and she is collecting pollen. They may be another, I'm not totally sure. They seem to have a habit of coming and going all day long and then mysteriously not returning without me being able to pinpoint exactly when. (This is really down to the limited time I have to be able to scour the CCTV).

Also, we definitely have more smaller bees, that weren't there at all about a week ago. Two emerged and sadly died within about 12 hours, they weren't properly formed: one was completely missing wings. But that gave us a hunch that new births were occuring, and also that they were not being very successful. 

I put this down to temperature so I resolved to help get the nest up to the requisite 30 degrees. 

Over the last few days we have seen an increasing ratio of smaller bees - perhaps one or two in place of one or two queens that no longer seem to be around. But the difference in relative activity and size is noticeable.

So, this adds yet more weight to the idea that new bees are being hatched. 

We can't fully tell whether these new bumbles are workers or males. What we can tell is we definitely have a worker or two: there's definitely some "partrolling" going on around the nest (frequent tours of the perimeter), occasional checking of the entrance and then there's what happened with the bedding...

Homemaking instinct

So, the bedding...

I was concerned based on general properties of the lodge, its location (shady), state of the nest (damaged internally) that there was no way a queen could be getting her brood up to 30 degrees. The two sick bees that emerged and died shortly after were not well formed - a classic sign of too-cold-a nest.  So I took a two-pronged attack to helping get the warmth of the nest up. 

The first of these was to install some infra-red lighting directly underneath the lodge. Ideally I would have liked to have it inside the nest, but logistically this was too much of a challenge due to space, wiring and control/monitoring - there would a risk of making things too hot and I would need to be able to monitor that and respond accordingly. This also means being able to do so remotely while away from home and I've not yet had time to devise a system for doing so (though it would be possible, as I now have remote power control over IP and remote telephone control to reboot the broadband router). So, outside installation was the realistic option. 

Since the IR is outside the wooden lodge I can safely leave it on permanently as it will not be making huge impact 

The second prong of the strategy was to add some bedding material to the nest. This is what we did for queens back in March when we were trying to encourage them to choose our site for nesting and we had loads of hamster bedding left over.  We know it's not their first choice compared to moss from our own observations, but we also know they are safe working with it and don't get tangled up. 

So, last night we put two bundles of it in the nest, in the corners (not over the centre where the actual activity was taking, as we didn't want to cause excessive stress or get any honey from honey pots soaked up). You can see in the picture below how we just tucked it into the corners to minimise stress to the bees and make sure we didn't get it any of their honey etc. We know that they can organise the bedding as they see fit. What we didn't was quite what they were going to do!

the bedding we added, just tucked into the corners initially

So, before I go into what was done, have a look at the final effect. We've taken this picture almost exactly 24 hours later. 

how the bedding was re-arranged by one bee over the course of 7 hours

What an amazing change! The bedding has been drawn into a dome over the centre of the nest; drawn away from the corners and tidied into a single mass. 

All this work has been done by a single bumblebee worker, working tirelessly through the night. 

You have to bear in mind that throughout the the night the nest is pitch black for the bee; it is mainly working by feel. It doesn't have any tools, it weighs less than a gram, but by cleverly weaving a repetitive path through the bedding. And this was done by one worker bee taking on what I call the "Nest fixing" role. Over the course of about 7 hours it put in about 4 hours solid work, stopping occasionally for a drink, and weaved its way through the bedding, tugging and pushing to create this new structure. Frankly, I find it totally astonishing.

I took a video of its activity at 32x speed to show what it did through the night to create this masterpiece:

 You can see she works tirelessly all through the night, alone, to re-arrange the bedding. During the day there is little activity like this and it starts again at night time - my theory is that as the day cools the bees are triggered to make sure the nest is providing warmth and insulation. 

What I also find remarkable is how the bees take on a role when the need arises. We hadn't seen much of this individual until we added the bedding; but then she sprung into action, took on this role to assemble the nest structure, and worked tirelessly through the night to do so. I find it all rather inspiring. 

Two fingers up to the master plan

There's definitely a plot thickening and developing in our Beepol bumblebee hive. 

But let me wind back a little.

We've had the beepol hive fractionally under three weeks (at the time of writing) and ever since we've had it, it's not been hugely active - not like the Natupol hive before it. We weren't too concerned as we figured it was "end of the season" (sort of) back at the start of August when we got it and that we ought to expect the nest to be in decline. It turns out, however, after expert confirmation, that the nest suffered overheating somewhere along its lifetime - melting and damaging the wax and thus also some of the colony. 

After a few days of stabilising the hive and its wooden lodge, getting all the CCTV installed and configured, I began tracking all activity in and out of the nest. I couldn't do this with the natupol box as it was too much data for someone with another day job to process! However, the activity levels were low enough in the more-recent beepol box for me to start this tracking. 

What we discovered by the time a week had gone by was that activity levels consisted of somewhere in the region of 25 total trips a day. We can't say is how many bees exactly were responsible for these trips, but my hunch was about half a dozen. What I can say is that there were, at one point, at least 5 bees out of the box at the same time (i.e. 5 more total exits than returns during one time period). 

We'd also seen a few new-born bees emerging from the box - which we can tell by their circling/memorisation behaviour the first time they leave the nest. These were mainly workers, coming back with pollen. I started counting the pollen trips too and it represented most of the trips. So far, so good - nothing unusual, just a hive of workers doing their thing.

But we noticed something curious...

...We had queens. Several. On about day 4 of our installation 2 new ones emerged, then the next day 3 more emerged for the first time. There was quite a collection. It was beautiful and touching, but of itself nothing particuarly surprising. Indeed, the destiny of our Mother Queen, any Mother Queen, is to lay new queens that will carry the baton over winter hibernation to begin next year's colonies. We were seeing that process unfold, having suffered the disappointment of the Natupol colony not quite making it that far. Wonderful. Destination: destiny. 

A little more surprising was the fact that some queens were bringing pollen back to the nest. Unmistakable. There is really only one concrete reason for this: that they are laying and hatching young. Their own young. Queens do not really co-operate in the nest like workers - indeed may fight for dominance. Oddly, our handful seemed to be co-operating. This was a jigsaw with a lot of missing pieces. 

Size comparison: Worker (left) vs. Queen (right) bringing pollen back to the nest

As the next two weeks passed, aside from some inclement weather, activity significantly dwindled to the level of about half a dozen trips a day, if that. That could be just one bee. And It's really tailed off the last few days.

We've been checking the nest at the dead of night and trying to see how many live bees are in the there.

inside view of the nest. All quite small and contained and heat damaged

For the last week the number has been anywhere between 5 and 7 and 4, with rises and falls in number that could really only be explained by some of the  bumbles managing to find a hiding spot in nest.  I felt despondent at the drop to 4,  thinking yet again "this is all over now". But then the next night we saw 6 maybe 7. Foxy things these little bumbles. 

My hunch instinct was working overtime too. You have to remember that over the course of this season, I have scanned so much CCTV footage (much at high speed) that my ability to recognise and decipher CCTV images of bees has become like a seventh sense. I felt we were down to one, maybe two Queens bringing pollen back, though there were more in the nest. We were still thinking this was some kind of misguided (and co-operative) behaviour. Maybe one of them was Mother Queen...? maybe one of them was helping with some of Mother Queen's previously layed babies?  No - actually - it didn't stack up.

On top of that, we had seen a queen or two "fussing". "Fussing" is my technical term for doing something to a wax pot that you can't see (because they are on top, obscuring your view). Is "fussing" keeping the temperature up? Is "Fussing" helping to break through the wax? Or something else?

Either way, there was "fussing" but it didn't fit the mental jigsaw we were currently picturing. We didn't know yet that maybe we had the wrong jigsaw.

Then something really surprising happened this weekend (about 17/18 days in). A small, fluffly, faded bumble, with a dislocated wing, crawled to the entrance of the nest and didn't know what to do. 

 

Where had little "1.5" wing been all this time? Actually (s)he was rather bedraggled and lethargic. We've seen this before; it means one of two things: new born or very poorly. Or both. Quite often the bees come out of the nest, almost in a trance-like daze when they are ready to die. Sad, poignant, and utterly amazing. 

If it was a worker from the Mother Queen, it didn't make sense. We'd seen the last of her worker brood all emerge two weeks ago (and we suspect Mother Queen was the queen who came out to finally be laid to rest in our spare nestsbox). So, really only two explanations fit:

• this was a male born a few weeks ago (pehaps to Mother Queen - that fits) who has been unable to fly, stayed in the nest, and now at two weeks old has come out to die (a typical lifespan for a male). But, we'd have expected him to follow his instinct and leave the nest earlier anyway, hoping to mate. 
• this is a newborn of one of our new queens. She's been laying, brooding and hatching - that would explain the pollen. Chances are it would be a male from an unfertilised egg. But, I suppose there is the possibility a Queen  has mated (we know one did with a redtail, for sure) and layed a fertilised egg. In which case this is a girl. 

Either way, the latter conclusion means that we have an "offspring" Queen laying new bees. Building a second colony. In the same season as she was born in. A sort of "Colony Deja Vu". This is not the natural order of things; she is suppoed to go off an mate and hibernate. But it is known to happen with Bombus Terrestris on occasions. How amazing for us to witness it.  

Sadly, little 1.5-Wing didn't last the night. We took him/her indoors for intensive care, but demise was quick and thankfully peaceful. 

Another birth?

The next day I was leaving at 6am for a drive to work. I quickly scanned the overnight CCTV footage and was intrigued to see a small bee spending the entire night on the inside wall of the nest by the entrance. Hunch mode.

I've learnt lots of behaviour patterns and this one is typical of a new bee. This is their first time preparing for the big wide world; they are programmed to do it, but they show a sense of uncertainty; of a need to prepare - just like fledglings leaping from a nest for the first time. New bees seem to take their time, figure out where the exit is, emerge a little nervously - and then.... launch backwards with all their might, hoping to stay airborne while memorising their surroundings in sufficient detail to be able to find their way back again.

Imagine that moment for our little bumblebee - it's a bigger event than breaking out of their wax pot to gasp the safety of the nest air; this, instead, is the Apollo moment. 

At one point in the footage I spotted a queen making for the exit and I managed to grab a screen shot of them side by side. You can see very clearly, one is a queen and one is not. 

 Queen bee and worker/drone bee side by sideAbout four hours later (by which time I was at work and monitoring from my iPhone), little new bee emerged into the entrance vestibule and spent another 30 minutes or so in there. I grabbed a screenshot, where you can just make her out.

The she came out onto the side of the entrance and clung on while I watched. An email arrived. I looked away. When I looked back, she was gone! I didn't know if she had flown or fallen, but I did know she hadn't gone back into the nest. I texted BCW and asked her to investigate and check the lawn. She reported back a few minutes later, although I had observed the whole episode on the CCTV anyway. Little bee had been found, clinging to our garden light. She was born disabled and deformed. She had no wings. BCW took her into care, where she has been this evening. 

Pieces of the same Jigsaw?

We're trying to piece this jigsaw together. The timing of the emergence of these two (apparently) new "non-Queen" bees certainly suggests we have new offspring. That means one of our queens is laying. That explains why pollen is being collected and honey supplies built up (both at fairly substantial levels in the nest).

My big concern, though, is the deformity. Two bees in a row. It could be genetic (especially from inbreeding) but I think it's temperature - I don't think development is occuring at the right temperature (30 degrees C) and consequently the bees are not forming properly. This is easily explained by the damage to the nest and lack of insulation material available; plus the open cavernous space of the lodge which will provide poor insulation. Poor queen will be working overtime to keep her wax pots at 30 degrees and won't stand a chance. 

We really want to do something to help - Queenie needs half a dozen successful workers or so to start building the critical mass to develop and supply her new colony, so she can focus on serious nest laying. If we can help her get to that point, there is a chance of a new colony starting to develop, in this tatty, damaged, melted, deserted, graveyard of a nest. It's almost two fingers up to the master plan. I love it. 

As an urgent measure we need to get a thermometer into the nest and then consider whether we can help insulate and heat it. I do have a plan about how to go about this, but time is not on our side. I'm away from home at HQ for another day and then we're only home a short time before our holiday. 

Conservation is always a race against time. 

Flying for the thrill of it

It's a cloudy and overcast day, about 19 degrees, with windspeeds up to 7.5 mph (not counting gusts).

Common wisdom says bumblebees don't fly in the wind, though of course you'd expect them to have some provision to do so, at least to overcome the challenge of being caught out in a breeze.

Of course, above a certain speed, like a canoeist paddling upstream, they wouldn't be able to make progress against the wind.

Unlike an aeroplane, however, Bumblebees do not rely on air-speed over their wings in order to generate lift (which is what gave rise to the popular myth "scientists say bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly; a comparison with the physics of fixed wing flight doesn't work for bumblebees).

It seems our bufftails are a hardy bunch - whilst activity is much reduced today, it hasn't stopped a few hardy ones venturing out to collect pollen and/or find a mate; time is, after all, of the essence as far as both are concerned. The one I've just seen has been out for about 30 minutes and come back with a decent stash of pollen.

And one final nail in the coffin for the concept of "dull days" - cloudy and overcast it may be, but the light inside our nest box has increased to a level where the infra-red camera is occasionally switching to full colour daylight mode. All that white cloud and reflected light is making it bright.

Maybe the brightness of the day is tempting the bees to venture out. Or maybe they just enjoy the thrill of a windy flight.