Rollercoaster

It's been a weird rollercoaster of a week.

Last Sunday (it's now Saturday at the time of writing) we consigned all of our bees to a sad demise. Over the prior days our Queen had become increasingly active earlier and earlier in the morning (as early as 3am), constantly showing signs of wanting to leave at that time in the morning. Of course, it was impossible for her because bumblebees can't fly in the dark. However, one morning she had crept out onto the roof of the lodge at about 4.30am, disappeared and then returned at 6.30 when the sun rose. She did this again last Saturday, except it was a much colder day, and she never came back. We went out to look for her, but no luck. And for the rest of the week we never saw her. 

Not only that, but each bumblebee that was left in the nest (3) took a trip out that day and never returned. And to top that off, it looked liked a brand new hatched bee also appeared in the nest. She was struggling to climb around, but eventually made it to the entrance. As she explored it, she lost her grip and fell to the ground. I only saw it on the recording a few hours later and dashed out to look for her on the lawn. Again. no luck. It seemed to me she had a problem with her leg and maybe hadn't fully developed, although she was a decent size. I always feel increased sense of loss when the first voyage into the world is not successful. 

For 4 days we sat and waited and wondered and hoped at least one of them might return. Nothing.

Then on Thursday I heard the CCTV triggering on and off in the next room. Thought nothing of it, it had been doing so already the last few days due to some flies poking around the nest. I assumed it was them. For some reason, as I went for a coffee, I took a look and was astonished to see a Queen back on the entrance to our nest box. She was cold, wet and tired and very slow moving, but somehow she'd climbed up there. We went out to inspect and I was sure she was our Queen. We videoed it all... 

This was actually the best chance we've had to look at her - she is big and bright and beautfully coloured, and had the two distinctive white tail stripes that confirmed her to be ours. We fed her some honey water after which she showed a very rapid recovery and eventually flew off. To our relief she returned later in the day and spent the evening in the nest keeping warm, dry and safe.

That wasn't the only surprise. While all that was happening, BCW spotted another bumble moving in the grass - she was drenched, bedraggled, cold, tired and frail. We rescued her in a jar and brought her inside. I knew instantly she was the newbie we'd seen fall from the nest. How and where had she survived for 5 days in such dreadful weather? We got her in a tub and brought her inside to warm up and she responded well. We gave her honey water and rested her tub on a warm wheat bag. We could now also see that she only had 5 legs - one had not developed. This explained exactly what I saw and her difficulty with movement and holding on. It also adds weight to the theory she has just been born, because the nest is certainly not at the 30 degrees needed to develop properly.

Sadly we came down this morning to find she had died quite suddenly overnight. We have no real explanation, other than she was truly exhausted, and of course not fully developed.

Meanwhile our Queen spent the night organising bedding in front of the infrared camera in the nestbox to keep warm. By early morning she was itching to get back out again and made a few trips to and from the box - but early afternoon she disappeared again and hasn't come back. I hope she can survive tonight and come back again tomorrow. 

Lying in a ditch was worth it

Garden Bumblebee (Bombus Hortorum) resting in the sunI'm delighted to have been approached by the ARKive project to supply some of my pictures of Bumblebees to their Database. The ARKive project is an initiative by Wildscreen to document and preserve the World's wildlife through the use of powerful imagery. Wildscreen themselves are a not-for-profit, with Patrons including Prince Philip and Sir David Attenborough.

It is a privilege to be asked to contribute and have my photographs alongside greats such as National Geographic and BBC Natural History and other world-class image and film-makers. A large number of big conservation names are backing the project including BirdLife International, Conservation International, English Nature, The World Conservation Union (IUCN), Natural History Museum London, RSPB, Smithsonian Institution, WWF.

It's great to know that all that crawling through 10 foot ditches with the hope of not getting stung was not in vain, and has resulted in images that are worthy of documenting some of our precious Bumblebees for research purposes and for the benefit of future generations.

It's a great outcome to what has been an amazing year of discovery.

A place to call home?

We've been keeping an eye out this week for some other queens on the lavender outside the front of our house. Even though it'snow the beginning of November, there are a few remnants of some healthy bunches of Lavender.

Over the last two weeks we've seen a number of Queen bumblebees foraging on said lavender: 2 Bufftailed queens (who were there together at one point) and a Redtailed Queen. 

Our main interest was to try and figure out whether one of these was our own Queen, who has been busy foraging and trying to collect pollen. After watching for a long time where they came and went, we concluded this was not the case: these two Bufftail queens had come from somewhere else. 

What happened next really surprised us: On separate occasions, two of these queens (one bufftail, one redtail) dived off into the undergrowth where the thick bushy and twiggy remnants of the main lavender "bush" remains. The Bufftail disappeared for a minute or two before coming out and diving back underneath a few feet away. We waited. And waited. And after 10 minutes or so she still hadn't come out. We suddenly wondered, is this where she is going to hibernate?

The terrain, at a first glance, is not entirely suitable for hibernation. While it is underneath the thick bushes of the lavender, the substrate consists of loose stones with a layer of anti-weed fabric, which would prevent the queen burying herself. Furthermore, the site faces south, whereas Bumblebees are believed to favour a North-facing site (to avoid being triggered to come out too soon in the Spring). So, it certainly left us a little quizzical.

Having said there, there is the possiblity she has found a little nook somewhere underneath the paving slabs of the front path. This would be more sandy underneath and we can see even from our external vantage point that there are nooks and crannies that have developed underneath the path over time. I think this would be the best theory if she really is hibernating under there. 

There's no doubt that one of these Bufftail queens is definitely in the area - we've seen her several times on the lavender.

And the other morning she spent several hours keeping warm on the frame of the front door, just 2 feet from where we'd seen her disappear into the undergrowth. We've now put a little bit of honey water out nearby, just to see if she shows interest and allow us to see where she is hiding out. 

And yes, my front door needs painting! 

All Change - and the early morning detection theory

It's about 2 weeks since the last update, at which time we had two "visiting" Queens in our nest, one of them busy collecting pollen and seemingly brooding.

A third queen had turned up and spent the a night in the nest along with them. She made a maiden flight the next day, then stayed in the nest. Over the next few days it was hard to tell which Queens were active as the first two in particular were very similar in appearance. However, within a few days, Queen "3" had certainly emerged and started making trips out from the nest. They were fairly sporadic, about 4 or 5 a day of about an hour's duration.

Intriguingly, the day she started doing this turned out to be the last day the previous Queen was active. She had made 12 trips, and the next day made none. We've seen no more of her. We've no idea if she died in the nest or changed behaviour (such as began permanently sitting on her brood) but I'm fairly certain she never left the nest again.

The day after this, Queen "3" swung into action and has been doing so ever since. She's been making 4 or 5 trips a day, every day, regardless of the temperature or weather, spending as much as 7 hours away from the nest. It's really tough finding pollen and it's been really hard to tell if she has been bringing any back. One some occasions I do think she's been bringing some dark grey/green pollen back. 

We have no idea how long this is going to go on for - collecting pollen would usually be to store food for a newly emerging brood, who would then take over the role; and this has gone on longer than we have seen before. It begs the question whether she has laid anything yet. All things being equal, I suspect she may (ought to) have done, but her eggs have not survived/developed due to the low temperatures in the nest; meanwhile Queen knows no better than to keep bringing pollen back. 

Which leads to another observation about this Queen: over the last 5 days she has been getting up earlier and ealier in the morning to start exploring the nest entrance and even coming right out onto the lodge in the pitch black. This has been as early as almost 3 in the morning, despite not having sufficient light to leave and fly till 7.30 (sunrise). [These times are GMT, after the clocks went back from BST].  

When I do my final write up, I'll be plotting all this hourly activity, as I've been tracking it in detail - with the hope of trying to draw some behavioural insight.

One theory is that she's trying to cram as many hours forgaging as possible into shorter and shorter days (sunset is now about 4.30pm), so would naturally start as early as possible. It may be that the infrared cameras around the nest are confusing her about the temperature outside - it will seem warmer than it ought to for the light levels; she keeps checking on reality; in some cases having to get right out of the lodge to calibrate the outdoor temperature with the light levels. 

All just a theory at this stage, hopefully more will become clear.. 

A new Queen line-up

I wasn't quite sure what to expect today, having come to the conclusion that three queens chose to share the nest last night, one of which we think is brooding.

One of the others has been in there a few days and we've not had concrete visibility of her, so it's possible she's actually died in the nest, as indeed our "August" (2nd Generation) queen did. 

The third queen turned up yesterday and was quite happy to head into the nest and stay there overnight. I didn't know if she would venture out today or what her behaviour pattern would be. 

I got my answer at 10am when she was the first queen to leave, because she tentively crept out of the nest and performed memorisation circling around the entrance to memorise the location of the nest. This means it was her first exit and that she planned on coming back. Sure enough, 21 minutes later she returned and from what I can tell, spent the rest of the day in the nest, probably trying to keep warm. 

A new visiting queen, memorising nest location

It was a cold day again today, peaking at 12.4 degrees, so I didn't expect to see much activity or foraging. How wrong I was - trip count was up again on yesterday at 46, levels not seen since September. The Queen (can't be sure which one) is contributing to these trips (8 Queen trips today) which is helping to lift the activity level. 

In fact activity stats for the last few days are as follows:

• 11/10/2011 8
• 12/10/2011 10
• 13/10/2011 5
• 14/10/2011 21
• 15/10/2011 12
• 16/10/2011 17
• 17/10/2011 22
• 18/10/2011 21
• 19/10/2011 46

As we can see, quite an upturn in the last few days, despite the temperature drop. This, I suspect, is driven by the Queen brooding. Bombus Terrestris are natural pollen collectors - they just keep doing it when the nest is functioning. So despite the fact the workers have shifted loyalty from their (expired) mother queen to a new queen, they seem quite happy working hard for her.