Wee Hidey-Hole

I noticed a tiny tiny bumble today that couldn't get back into the nest. It was so small, it had no chance of opening the flap - and all the bumbles that were coming and going around her were just buffeting her around and tredding all over her. It was sad to see. Then she fell off the ledge. 

I asked BCW if she would go out and try and rescue her but by then it was a little too late, and she couldn't be found. 

However, in the process, BCW heard a buzzing nearby and when she looked found a queen bee on the gravel and grass near one of our other nestboxes. She was tired, cold and hungry and seemed unable to fly, with a damage wing. 

BCW rescued her and took her indoors to get warm, dry and fed:

Understandably she drank without hesitation and with great enthusiasm from our tray of honey water. 

After she was satisified she decided to explore the Kapok that was also put in her box. Well, she seemed to love this. She burrowed down and made a wee hidey-hole. 

she didn't stop there - she burrowed deep inside - just as bufftails do (especially when hibernating underground).

BCW was concerned at this stage, in case she had gone in there to die. But thankfully she didn't stay there but came out again to explore and have another drink.

She's left us with a bit of a dilemma about what to do with her. It does seem as though she can't fly, in which case if we set her outdoors she will ultimately perish. On the other hand, keeping her indoors seems somewhat cruel - she has an expected lifespan of 18 months, but she will be trapped and unable to fulfil her destiny during that time; or who knows, maybe she will even start laying and nest building! 

That would not be good indoors - so our best bet is to see if she will use one of the nest boxes outside. We may have to put her in there with food supplies and see if that is enough to keep her in there and maybe start nest building. If she does not stay in there, we could consider trapping her - but I really do not like this idea - and there is no guarantee she would start laying either. Plus, since, presumably, she hasn't mated yet, she will only lay boys, so she will not get any help making the nest. It's difficult to know what to do for the best. 

Nest-sensor setup (part 1)

I made some further progress today in getting our beepol lodge "internet enabled" - to get temperature, light and activity data automatically logged and available online. 

More details are on the technology page, but I'm using an ioBridge board to capture the data and push it to their web platform, whenceforth all manner of wonderful things can be done with it. 

I've been setting it up over the last week - getting to grips with the way the sensors would and the way data is recorded. I've pretty much got to grips with the basics, as well as some of the features that are possible such as twitter notifications.

The rain and wind and low temperatures continue to make getting in the garden to do jobs a very cold and messy (muddy) affair - notwithstanding, I did some of the setup in the garage, which included drilling through the wall for the wires and getting the network up and running.

getting the iobridge powered up and running in the garage - sensors routed through the wallI mounted a weatherproof box on the outside of the garage. This will contain an ambient light sensor, and some status LEDs (for example, a sunset/sunrise indicator) and a warning buzzer (e.g. for nest "over temperature")

outdoor iobridge sensorsThe white cables are the two temperature sensors - one for inside the nest, the other for the ambient temperature. 

This is the kind of output we're getting at the moment. Once it's been running a few days, I'll set up some rules (such as triggers on temperatures).

iobridge dashboard of bumblebee sensorsYou can see I've set up a "flap input". This is not installed yet, but the plan is to put a small switch on the wax-moth flap (made from aluminium foil) and count the amount of "flap" activity, which will give an indication of how many bumblebees are coming and going into the nest. Just need a dry, warmer day to get that done. 

Rain, Rain, go away! The bumbles can't get out to play!

More rain, more rain - and you can almost sense the frustration in the bumblebee nest, with a stack of bumblebees (and numerous queens) all clustered on the front wall. We're not sure if they are just waiting to make a quick break to get out, or actually basking in the infrared warmth of the camera (you can see how the pool of light is centred more or less over the entrance hole). 

Rain, rain, rain - the bumbles want to get out, but are patiently waiting

Having said that, they could also group at the bottom of the nest underneath the other camera too - which they haven't done. So, maybe they are just queuing for a quick get-away!

Oh and look at that big fat queen right on the right of the entrance! she's enormous!

Building a Space Elevator: gotta start somewhere

Can't believe the weather at the moment - despite an official drought in this (and other) regions, it's been tipping it down the best of a week. The only bright side to this is it means my backlog on the CCTV analysis might not be as insurmountable as it currently seems! 

Not so great for the bumbles though - they've not had a lot of time to get out of the nest! And then they have it's been pretty short trips, often getting caught out by showers. It's been horrible to see them coming back wet, because, of course, it takes them longer to get into the nest via the flap than it would do otherwise (the queens especially have the most trouble). I suspect we have actually lost quite a few - it's one of my usual hunches, which i now rely on to be generally right (they are!) - based on a sense of how many are going out versus returning.

There's not actually a lot of pollen out there either - the rape seed fields have blossomed but the local ones are probably too far for our bumbles to get to from here. There's some dandelion on the roadside - but I had to say, they are doing well to get what they're getting!

All the rain is causing a bit of a backlog in the nest for bumblebees - in particular, queens - waiting to get out. They seem to like the inside front of lodge for waiting/resting. We're not sure why - whether they can sense the outdoor temperature through the wood; or the vibration of the rain; or feel the heat of the sun; or perhaps the warmth from the infra red camera. Anyway, here are some pics

Queens stacked up waiting to get out!It's not just queens of course - here are some workers for comparison - a few fanning too.. These are large workers, but the size different is still obvious.

workers crowding and fanning the entranceWe aso have a bumble that is permanently on door duty. She seems to have a lookout role but also blocks the others (especially the larger ones) from leaving when the weather is not good. She sits there overnight too - right up against the entrance. In fact she often pushes against the wax moth flap to open it slightly, apparently to sense the air/weather. We are still trying to figure out exactly how they sense temperature, because we know this controls the leaving patterns in the morning. Here she is:

 

Building Bridges

We noticed yesterday that bumbles at the back of the nest, right under the camera, were climbing up some kind of self-made "pole" from the floor of the nest to the first lip (maybe 4 - 5 inches). It's hard to figure out how this construction has come about, because for a while it looked just like the end of a piece of "stuff" lying flat on the base of the nest-tub and protruding into the picture. It got shunted around a bit, then something happened overnight, and next thing we know it's being used like an elevator to get from the floor of the box to the top of it! We can definitely see bees shimmying up and down it quite consciously and occasionally "fixing" it (i.e. messing with it) at the bottom.

It's a bit hard to see in the picture (the video always seems clearly than the stills) but it comes up from the floor in the middle left:

fixing the bottom of the bumble "space elevator"a bumblebee climbing the 'space elevator'

Perhaps they're building a space elevator? ☺cool...

Fat Bottomed Girls - and our 1st goodbye

We've had a few bumblebees in care now, 3 in fact, all very small and missing various bits such as wings and legs. They've been getting along great together in their box and feeding well. Here they are all sleeping/resting together - very cute ☺

3 tiny bumbles resting overnightOnce BCW was back from her travels she decided to name them after the 3 Amigos (3 Abeegos, as I call them): Lucky, Dusty and Nedine (girl's version of Ned). 

Sadly, girl/worker bumblebees generally have a very short life, perhaps 1 - 3 weeks, and the small ones especially so. Lucky, the first one I rescued, took a turn for the worse mid morning - very still and listless. We offered her some honey water but she wasn't interested and it didn't help to revive her. 

Little Lucky - not feeling so wellIt looks like this evening we've lost her; sad indeed, but we are becoming used to it - all part of the short cycle of life for bumblebees and for her only perhaps 6 - 10 days old.

I've not had chance to scan the CCTV so far this week (which is not good) - but it's been so wet and windy that there's not been a lot of activity. One of the most intriguing things we'e seen is what seems to be a queen fanning. I'm surprised she is taking on a worker role. I keep doubting if it's a queen, but here's a series of pictures and I'm sure that all the large bees are queens. Indeed, some of them are easily over 25mm in length.

a very sizeable bee - queen - fanning Another shot of the same queenOther large bees - NOT queen size - fanning

 And another shot of some queens just to get the scale

3 queens resting at the entrance - huge abdomenSo, I'm pretty confident in that first image, it's a queen.