Pecking Order

We've not said a lot about the Queen we have indoors - she's been with us 4 days now (found Monday 30th April) when we discovered her bedraggled in the garden, unable to fly. 

She's got a problem with her wings; in fact, they seem as though they haven't inflated properly and become large and rigid enough, and consequently she can't generate the lift needed no matter how hard she flaps. We're still not 100% sure, we keep expecting her to take off at some point, but we've tried allowing her to do so numerous times and it just doesn't happen. 

Consequently we've kept her indoors and fed her. She has fed fine on honey water and loves the Kapok we provided - burrowing deep down with ease, often disappearing from sight altogether!

Where's she gone? :)Up till now we have kept our two worker bumbles and the queen separate as we weren't really sure how it would work out putting them together, or indeed what we should do with the queen long term. We've sought additional expert advice, and the best suggestion is that the kindest thing to do is actually keep our queen alive (she will perish outdoors) and take the opportunity to study her behaviour.

a clearer view of our queen's imperfect wingsIn fact, her behaviour has been a mild source of concern as she has basically spent a good deal of her time buried in the Kapok, very still. Not that there is a lot to do, of course, but it's kind of worrying to see her so inactive. So, we took a calculated decision to introduce the workers to the same space as her to see whether as a small community it would have a beneficial effect.

We ensured that we had a backout plan and introduced them together late this afternoon. Well, the good news is there was no fighting! 

Actually the behaviour has been rather intriguing as we watch for subtle cues of their interaction.

The first reponse seemed to be that our two workers were interested in the queen and kept going over to her to explore. She was a bit annoyed by this - and has given then warning signs, as well as nudged them out of the way, and the occasional kick. Lucky, the smallest, was most interested. In general the Queen was ignoring them except when they came to her. 

That broad pattern has continued, however, at times the queen has now pro-actively followed the workers. She shows signs of exerting her dominance by nudging them, possibly biting at them a little (legs/side) - though that's hard to tell. But what is obvious, is she stands right over them and engulfs them with her whole body (see video). She does not appear to harm them in any way, but it's a real apparent show of dominance/submission and quite intriguing. 

Even more remarkable, however, is the behaviour of the workers, because every so often - lucky in particularly - approaches the queen and actually walks right under her, assuming the same position as described above. So, this appears like a deliberate show of submission to the Queen, which I certainly never expected.

All throughout this there is a certain sense that the queen is a bit agitated by the attention. We have to remember, of course, that these bumbles are sisters, not mother daughter, and I wouldn't doubt for a minutes that they could tell the difference in smell. Perhaps our queen has to work up to producing the pheremones that her mother would normally produce to help control her offspring; and we know that behavioural dominance is a key part of the dynamic in the ordinary nest. (see my reference papers). Of course, there are mechanisms, such as smell for cuckoo bumblebees to take over the dominant role in the nest, so we know it can happen - and perhaps we are seeing some of that here. 

The other thing that has become immediately noticeable, though we will have to observe for a few days to determine if it is coincidence, is that the workers - Nedine in particular have suddenly shown an interest in the pollen that they have never done so before. Both the workers have spent more time amongst the pollen that is in the corner of the box, seemingly just walking through - but tonight we clearly observed Nedine's mandibles in action, picking at small grains. Has the presence of a queen suddenly triggered an interest in pollen? If so, the effect was within a matter of hours. 

So, we wait a little nervously for this first night, hoping all will be intact in the morning - remembering back to when we introduced our workers and boy last year and he created chaos in the nest!

Two much excitement for one day

Turned into an interesting day today with two bits of news.

Getting Sensitive

First of all I was contacted back by Zettlex - a small company in Cambridge who make "non contact" distance sensors. Their systems are very small and light, based on magnetic resonance, and can very accurately measure the distance between the sensor and an 'antenna' device attached to a moving object.

Now, before you go thinking I'm sticking sensors to bumblebees, I'm not! (That's next year's idea!) ☺ 

The plan, actually is to mount a sensor on the wax moth trap door, so that when it is in use (see below), the movement can be detected. 

bumblebee using the wax moth flapI wasn't sure if Zettlex would have been able to supply such a small, single unit, but they have very kindly offered to help me out - so the least I can do is sing their praises! 

Of course, there will be a lot of work still to get the sensor working, hopefully integrated with the iobridge platform so I can get realtime data and alerts out to the internet and beyond. I'm actually really excited about the possibilities, because over and above tracking simple activity data, such as start and end times of the day, I may be able to get data about how the flap is actually used: for example, how long it takes a bumblebee to master its usage. 

Hitting the screen

Even more exciting news came this afternoon with confirmation that some of our footage has made it into the final "Britain in a Day" film. I'm mentioning it here, because although we submitted several hours worth of material we know that the piece that has been selected concerns our bumblebees. It's actually a lovely segment, filled with emotion and despite its short length, a strong storyline and message; which is probably why it succeeded in being picked.

I don't want to give away too much, so that's all I say; but if you are in the UK, the film should be showing on BBC2 on June 2nd 2012. 

Here's some information about the whole "Britain in a day" project:

Britain In A Day is a major new project designed to capture a unique snapshot of Britain on one day, and people from all corners of the United Kingdom are invited to take part.

On Saturday November 12th we asked people in Britain to film something that captures the intimacy and singularity of their life and to upload it to a dedicated channel on YouTube. With the support of executive producers Ridley Scott and Academy Award winning Kevin Macdonald, director Morgan Matthews will use the rich trove of material submitted to craft a feature-length documentary film that captures the variety and vibrancy of life in Britain today. 

The result will be broadcast on BBC2 next year in the run up to the Olympics.

The idea is based on Life In A Day, the global, user-generated feature film produced by Ridley Scott’s company Scott Free London and directed by Kevin Macdonald. 80,000 videos were submitted to YouTube by people all over the world, wherever they were and whatever they were doing. The result was a powerful and inspiring portrait of the world on a single day. 

We feel privileged to have been selected and are really looking forward to seeing the whole film. If it turns out anything like "Life in a Day" (the original global version) it will be brilliant!

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!