We want unkempt grass!

It turned out to be an interesting day, busier than expected as far as the bumblebees were concerned. Aside from a small update in pictures (below) we also met the head of Parks and Open spaces from our local council, and I also had contact from another leading bumbler (actually a co-founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust) with exciting nest box information. So let me deal with them in turn:

Parks and Open Spaces

Thanks are due to BCW for setting up a meeting with the head of Parks and Open Spaces for East Cambridgeshire Council, who came to visit us today. We discussed ideas and possibities for changing the way (and frequency) that grass is cut in our neighbourhood and the planting of wild meadow flowers in some locations. It was a good meeting and he was very friendly and ameniable, though with any such ideas one has to be cogniscent of the objections from other residents (such as "I pay my council tax to have the grass cut every two weeks in a perfect shape", or "I don't want wild flowers outside my house because I don't want them spreading to my garden".) Sadly it is very hard to please everyone. 

However, there are definitely things that can be done. One simple idea is to leave uncut rings around the base of trees to encourage plants to regrow (and actually protect the trees from lawnmower/strimmer damage). These rings can be extended over time in a sort of "stealth" fashion to reduce objections. It seems where a small amount of natural wilderness has been allowed to regrow in other areas it has eventually been well received by residents, who eventually get to see the benefit. 

The Queen bees were on great form - showing up just where we needed them to as we explained where all their favourite hangouts are. ☺

A new nestbox on the market

I was thrilled to be contacted by George Pilkington of Nurturing Nature with details of a new nestbox he has designed and launched. Turns out George is a conservation consultant and founder member of the BBCT and has been interested in our blog. He told me he was really wanting to tell us about his new nestbox, but couldn't until the design was protected - but one of its key features is the ability to protect from wax moth, which is a massive step forward. I wasted no time in asking George to send us one to add to our collection and try out alongside the other simpler designs. 

He has also shared some of his ideas about how to encourage queens to choose a manmade nestbox to set up colony - some ideas we had already come to know of or devised independently, others are definitely improvements on our setup. I have made some immediate entrance tube modifications based on his suggestions (see later). Most intriguingly I am looking forward to advice on capturing queens without causing them stress, which inevitably puts them off using the box regardless. 

Updates on our Cloche captives

Out two queens under our cloche have still not ventured into the nestbox so we are considering next steps (e.g. releasing them) as we do not want them to be unduly stressed or become frail. They do have adequate food supply, but we're not convinced they're using it. They may be getting too cold overnight by not using the box. We did see them both mooching about today though and we put some springs of heather on the ground (since they weren't flying up to the tall pots) and the Early Bee immediately tucked in. 

Temperature wise the cloche is doing a great job - while it was 12 degrees in the garden is was 21C under the cloche, so this  must be working in their favour. But after their initial introduction and buzzing we haven't seen any flying activity and that bothers me. To us humans it looks like a "mood change" and we saw the same thing with our "indoor" bees (disabled) last year. And of course, we know that recent research suggests that bees can potentially experience "depression" (a change in propensity to be active, really). We will monitor this carefully. 

Our first 2 captive queensOur bufftail is beautiful though and she loves sitting on the ribbon in the corner for some reason. 

garden setup changes 

fake "flowers" to attract attentionWe've read numerous times that bumbles can be attracted to bright yellow and that it can be helpful if nest entrances are marked out like this. This is something we'd already done with our nests, but we got some of our own evidence of bees' interest in it when we saw yellow tape on our CCTV cables. I've now added tape to some canes to create a splash of colour as they fly past the garden - hopefully a little extra to tempt them in for a closer look. Never thought my high-visibility tape would be used for this. ☺

Based on George's pictures and suggestions we have also extended the entrance tubing on our nestbox, so that it is now disguised on the lawn (see the tiny yellow fleck in the picture below). We saw a very large queen nest searching over our lawn today and in fact after a few minutes caught her and introduced her to the box (without sealing it). Of course, she left fairly quickly, but it was interesting to see where in the garden she was and wasn't looking; which backs up for extending the entrance tube. 

nestbox entrance extended with a tube across to the lawn

And finally

Our pussy willow tree is starting to blossom! It's a little behind some of those on the edge of the field - but not by much. I took a close up picture of one of the catkins - you can see why the bees are going nuts for them - look at all the access to pollen!

pollen-rich catkins (pussy willow)

We're hoping that over the next few days we'll have a lot of queens showing an interest in it!

Hi Viz Gaffer tape & other brainwaves

Last night we had 3 bees with us - two under the cloche and one in the entrance of the buried nest box. The one in the buried box was not captive, so was free to go at any time. Looks like she probably did - as expected; certainly there was no activity on the camera inside the box itself and BCW did not report seeing anything. 

The day started very foggily and during the morning was only about 6C, so was a bit cold for any bumblebee activity (at 5C or below they tend to go into a 'frozen state' where they can't operate. And bear in mind they need to vibrate themselves to 30C to be able to fly!

So, the cloche had a lot of condensation on it, which made it difficult for BCW to see what was going on underneath, if anything. Later in the day it cleared a little and she saw the bufftailed queen on the side of the brick near the box (it is covering an ant trap). No sign of our little Early Bee though. Couldn't blame her if she wanted to just bed down and hide all day!

As I wasn't home today, I can also confirm that camera access via the iPAD is working very well. It's fabulous on the larger screen compared to the iPhone. I am using EagleEyeHD (which is designed for my DVR). I am on the THREE network and can get 3G signal at work - which delivers an excellent picture. Oddly the app doesn't seem to provide sound, even though the iPhone app supports sound no problem - which seems a bit odd. But the picture is good. Certainly good enough to know that there has been no obvious activity in any of the boxes yet!

Creating a colour splash - attracting attention

I also had the idea today of sticking some of my hi-vis gaffer tape on the end of canes in the garden today to attract the attention of passing bumbles. Some sources cite a bright yellow colour around the nest as a way to attract attention (and help memory) and it's something we actually did instintively last year around our Beepol nest. And on sunday we saw a big fat throaty queen fly round the garden and dinstictly check out a small tab of the bright yellow tape I had stuck on my CCTV cable (which was strung across some fence posts). Even if it only encourages a passing queen to dip down into our garden and have a quick mooch, it's worth a go, and increases the chance of her discovering the nest boxes. 

Location Tracking

I also had another bit of a brainwave yesterday to help with tracking and recording the location of where we find our queens. We know the general area from last year, but not the identical spot and density of population. This would be good to capture.

I realised that simple by taking a picture of the location, my iPhone would capture the GPS location and we could plot it later. In fact, most exciting is the new Adobe Lightroom 4 mapping feature (I've still yet to upgrade) which will allow me to produce maps of all the locations. Can't wait to try that out.  It's great to be putting all our tech to good use. 

Chasing Queens

We woke up today with the sun shining brightly and the sound a loud buzzing around our window! It was a beautiful day and clearly the bumblebees were out and busy. Not so many on our heather today - though we did see a Queen Tree Bee warming up and having a drink. (See below)

tree bee warming and foraging on heatherSo, we got to work quickly to complete the set up for our main nesting box. Following our experiences last year we decided that the best strategy for keeping queens captive for a short while to encourage nesting, is not to trap them in the box itself but to provide a small "greenhouse" area with all the required plants. Thus the queen is not trapped directly in the box and has some ability to roam and forage. We are using a cheap (£11) "greenhouse cloche" from Wilkinson - it's perfect for the job. 

We mounted the box first and made sure that all the edges of the plastic cloche were well buried in the stones to prevent any escapees. 

"greehhouse" system for keeping queens captiveWe chose the back top left corner of the garden which faces south east. This is a compromise location to ensure the box doesn't get too much direct sunlight during the height of summer (since the box is not buried). 

The we added a good supply of flowers (in this case Heather). 

We also provided honey water in the box (which we can refill from the outside if necessary) and also some pea-sized pollen balls in the box to encourage nesting. If the queen shows interest, we'll replace these every day.

"greenhouse" system for keeping queens captiveWe went out about 3pm to our usual location by the nearby field and were astonished to see how many bumblebees were around. Many were zooming past our heads and we traced them down to the nearby Pussy Willow trees. 10's of bees were buzzing about the upper branches, foraging on the emerging blossom - it was an amazing sight - never seen so many queens all together. 

I wandered along the ditch at first and quickly found a queen trying to burrow down - probably to rest for the night (about 3.30pm). She was easy to catch and very placid. It was easy to get her into the cloche safely too. Here she is:

we think this is an Early Bee QueenAt first we thought she was a bufftailed queen, but I began to think she is actually and Early Bee, due to her quite strongly red tail and also her much more diminutive size. (Oh, you should see the males in the summer, they are tiny and ever so cute).  

Pussy Willow with 10s of Queen Bumblebees busy all over itAbove is the tree where so many bees were busy. You can't really see them in the picture, but it was like Heathrow airport! As the afternoon faded many of these bumbles dropped down to floor level and were searching along the fence line (where the cut grass met the natural grass and twigs) looking for somewhere to bed down. It was easy for me to capture two along this line and bring them back. 

We decided to let one of these two (both Bufftails) into the cloche. Even though it now contains two queens and they could end up fighting to the death, we feel that we can release one of them if we see that looks like it might happen. At this stage we don't know the likelihood of either of them nesting, so we could end up releasing both if they show no interest. 

Below is the bufftail we added. She was significantly larger than the Early Bee (as expected). 

bufftailed queenShe spent quite a while trying to fly to the light, but eventually gave up and decided to bed down under some of the stones; which was intriguing to see how she managed. The early bee did the same - after about a minute in the cloche she decided to bury down into a gap in the stones, sheltered by a dried leaf. If only they knew the luxurious cabin they have available at the other end of the cloche ☺

The third queen we added to our second nest box - this box hasn't got the same food supplies, so we will have to open up the entrance tomorrow, and if she leaves, so be it. 

Now we have to monitor them carefully for the next few days - we have cameras set up in all the boxes which will help us keep a close eye on things. 

Bumble infrastructure & Beepol modifications

A busy day today. Busier than the bees, as it was cool and windy, so I only saw one Bufftailed queen foraging on our heather. Meanwhile I was completing off all our "infrastructure" preparations - namely the nestboxes and CCTV. 

I've created a "photo diary" of what I did, which included some desired modifications to our beepol lodge - I hope fellow bumblers will find them useful. 

beepol lodgeAbove is the beepol lodge with last year's modifications - namely the extension to hold the external entrance camera. You can also see the new wax-moth entrance flap, which screws on as an attachment. This is new for the 2012 season. Everything else about the lodge is standard. 

bumblebee nest boxesAbove our our other two nestboxes. These have had various modifications from 2011 and one of them we can now add sugar/honey-water to from outside. I prepped them internally last week, but needed to check/reset the cameras and install thermometers. 

On the right is my fake "hill" - it covers the next box and can be placed up against a wall to disguise it. The idea is to make the bumblebees think the box is underground. We put lots of plants and grasses round it to add to the effect. 

fitting & testing the internal entrance cameraThis year we are putting two cameras in the lodge rather than one and thus placing them slightly differentlt. This camera above is trained directly at the entrance hole, and indeed can see right out through it - so I think we'll get some cool shots as bees come into land and come through the entrance. But also, the other reason for placing it this way is so that we can use the movement detection on the DVR to more reliably count bumbles in and out of the nest. 

2 cameras installedAbove 2 cameras are now installed - one will point down more into the nest so we can see activity below. They are quite fiddly to place and also to decide the best view when there is no nest in the box - but I have to assume that two cameras will be better than one! The other wire dangling down is the thermometer: more on that later. 

embedded thermometer on bumblebee lodgeThe next job I undertook was to embed a thermometer in the extended entrance porch. This was no easy job - it took the best part of 90 minutes to disassemble and drill/file out a hole and get it all back together again without breaking it - it's quite soft wood. But I'm really pleased with the result. The thermometer wire runs through a hole in the back and into the second lodge entrance which would otherwise be blocked, and is attached inside to measure the ambient temperature inside the nest. It's going to be a pain if the thermometer dies or needs its batteries changing, but so be it! I tried many variations of attaching the thermometer to the inside and outside of the lodge, but this is the neatest and also the thermo is visible to the external camera, which is a big help when reviewing footage. [That's a top tip from last year: it's very useful to have the temperature visible on camera].

view from external entrance cameracable tidy at rear of lodge

The next job (above) was to start tidying up the cabling at the back of the lodge from all the cameras. Some tacked-in cable clips do the job and makes the whole process of moving the lodge a bit easier and safer. 

sealing the edges against wax moth Next I attached some velcro along the edges of the box base. This is only the "loops" part (softer) and not the "hooks" part: we don't want the box to stick together, we just want all the imperfections and very slight gaps in the wood sealed over - the sticky-backed fabric is perfect for this. 

creating a bumblebee sizing chartAnother feature we wanted to add after last year's experiences was some kind of "sizing" chart inside the box, so that when bees move across the field of view we can get some indication of their size. This is useful for understanding whether they are queen, boy or girl, or under-formed etc. And also for indentifying the bee when there are only a few in the box. I discovered the graph paper didn't show up well on the camera, so i first marked all the corners in black pen. But that didn't show up on the infrared, so I had the brainwave of poking a hole at each corner and mounting the graph paper on some diamond grade high-visibility - the result is excellent under infra-red. 

view of size guide in daylightglowing "dots" on the size chart under infraredHowveer, when the lodge is closed and the camera switches to infra-red, the high visibility backing creates a series of glowing "dots" at 1cm spacing. This will be perfect for assessing the bee sizes as they enter and leave. 

base for the beepol lodge and shelterFor the base of the lodge this year we are using an old plastic board, with some extra high vis tape for grip. Also, the bees will be able to use this bright colour to memorise the nest location very easily, so if we needed to move it around the garden a bit, they should find their way back in ok! We are using this base instead of putting the lodge directly on the stones, just to help a bit in situations where bumbles fall from the nest, so that they don't get lost or buried in the stones directly underneath.

a nestbox in situ - with its "disguise"Above is one of the completed nest boxes on its site. It is partially buried and disguised by the expanding foam shelter. More grasses and heathers to come. We wil not interfere with this box and just hope that some nest searching queens explore it and choose to use it. You can see it also has an embedded temperature guage. 

The beepol lodge in situ, showing thermometer workingAbove is the beepol lodge in its intended location. The thermometer is working a treat! The shelter is not strictly necessary but we are just shading the box a little and also protecting it from rain. The bricks are greased round the side and help to keep ants from getting into the nest. 

both east-facing nest sites: beepol lodge and disguised nest box

internal layout of 2nd nest boxAbove is the internal layout of the 2nd nest box. This box has two cameras for greater coverage and i've created a tube at the back to supply food. This could allow us to keep a queen captive if we wish to try and oblige her to brood. The food would go down the tube into the pen lid attached to the side of the box. This box will be sited south facing at the rear of the garden and will be less disguised. This is the one we'll use to try and brood any queens we capture that are nest searching.

I still have to repatch all the video on the DVR in my studio to get all the right cameras coming up on the right channels with the right names, but apart from that we now just need to wait for the queens to start nest searching in earnest! 

Declaring Bumblebee season 2012 officially open!

Well, nature waits for no-one! Not for us and not for the Bumblebees!

It's only a few months (November) since we saw the last of our bumblebees. Sadly the remnants of our own colony died, but elsewhere Queens were busy hibernating. Winter was unusually warm this year, with only a couple of short cold snaps and the latter weeks of February have been very mild here in East Anglia. 

The trigger point was Thursday 23rd February, when temperatures reached about 15C here (and apparently 18C elsewhere) and lo and behold out came the bumblebees!

I was privileged to spot (and photograph) as many as half a dozen on the two heather plants at our front door, which are in full bloom (and were chosen specially for the job). There were two Tree Bees particularly interested on that day. Today ambient temperatures were a little lower but still enough to create lots of activity, not just from bumblebees but from honey/solitary bees too. Ambient temperature was about 12 - 14C, but the temperature on our south facing house wall, where the bees love to warm up, was a sultry 29C! Today we saw mainly bufftaileds. BCW and I disagree over whether we saw a white-tailed bumble as well: it was certainly more lemony, but I don't think the tail was white enough. So, we agree to differ. There are not a lot of flowers 

More excitement was created at the end of the afternoon as BCW saw one of the bumbles leave the heather and head into the flowery undergrowth near to our lavender. She burrowed down in there and didn't come out - so we know she is sleeping in the border just by our front door. I'd love to see her come out first thing tomorrow! 

So, this is the trigger for us to get busy preparing for the 2012 bumblebee year; and there is plenty to do:

• clean the beepol lodge and spray with Certan (anti-wax moth treatment)
• fit the beepol anti-wax moth flap
• "un-fit" and re-site the nestboxes that were placed for hibernation (and not used)
• start sorting out and re-routing all the CCTV (and consider drilling through the wall instead of using the window)
• replace faulty equipment (especially thermometers)
• fit a feeding system to the nest boxes

The work is well under way - here's what we've done and plan to do:

Beepol Lodge

We are re-siting the lodge to a less shady area of the garden, though still west-facing; we have to find the right balance of light, shade and temperature, bearing in mind the longest/warmest days. We are sitting the lodge on an old plastic sign, which will provide a good level and a safer area for bees that fall off the lodge (previously they fell in amongst the gravel/stones). We are also going to

We've sprayed the lodge again this year with Certan as an additional preventative measure against wax moth, as well as fitting the new flap system supplied by beepol. This system screws onto the existing ledge and has a plastic flap that wax moth cannot navigate - however, the bees can learn to operate it. 

Also this year I am going to fit 2 cameras inside the lodge so that we can see activity at the entrance (brilliant for counting bees in/out of the nest) but also see down into to the nest to see how it is developing - this will help eliminate the need to check on it by opening it so often. Also, we will fit a thermometer, which we didn't get chance to do last year. I've order the same "fridge" thermometers as last year as they can be surface mounted and I plan to drill a hole in the lodge to do so. 

Nest boxes

Even though we will buy a live Beepol colony again this year, we will still also provide nest boxes for "wild" queens, should they choose them. Last year we tried very hard to get wild queens to nest by capturing them and adding them to the nestboxes. One stayed three nights, but none of them actually stayed to nest. We will try a similar strategy this year, though not as intensive. We have come up with a different system for keeping Queens in the box - rather than trap them in there (a strategy we eventually abandoned) we have got a "greenhouse cloche" (about 2 feet high) that we can put over the box. That way we can include plants/flowers next to the box and let the queen fly and explore within the cloche, whilst restricting her to a small area. We hope this will be less stressful for them and leave them more inclined to choose to nest in the box. 

As ever, the nest boxes are equipped with internal CCTV cameras and also need new thermometers. I have also drilled a "feeding hole" into one of the boxes, so that we can add sugar/honey-water into a small holder on the inside wall of the box. This was something we wanted but didn't have last year when we kept some queens temporarily captive. 

We have put a small amount of dry moss and brown hamster bedding in the boxes (a smaller amount than last year, based on our observations of the live colonies and the space they need). We know the bees manage very well with the hamster bedding. 

One box will be sited south facing, the other east facing against our garage wall. We wil probably slightly bury the east-facing box and use my expanding foam "disguised" to make it look underground and just leave that box be, to see what happens and whether any bumbles choose it of their own accord. If any do choose it to nest, we will need to come up with a wax moth strategy!

Camera Work

There is plenty to do on the tech front also. Really for the CCTV system I now need a 16 channel DVR, but for now I will stick with my Quad box and 4 channel DVR which together allow me to use 8 cameras. It's just about good enough to get started, but unfortunately limits my ability to use motion detection to 3 key cameras. 

The other big consideration is whether to make the wiring more permanent and route the cables through the house wall, rather than via a window. I'm still debating whether to go ahead with this as the hole would have to be quite big.

The other addition to the camera arsenal is, of course, the new Canon 5D MkII. I've been testing that the last few days with a ring-flash for macro work and also my existing 80mm macro lens. The camera is already proving better because it can shoot longer bursts than my old camera and at significnantly higher resolution; although it would be nice to get a few more frames per second from it :-) 

Anyway, we are making good progress in getting prepared, though time is of the essence as the Bumblebees are already coming out of hibernation and will be looking for nests soon!