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.

Hibernation Station

Today's plan was to create some hibernation habitat for ours (or indeed) any other bumble queens. I certainly succeeded but before I go on to explain what i did, a few words about Bumble bee hiberation are in order. 

About Bumblebee Hibernation

The survival of bumblebees depends on hibernation. A bold claim, perhaps, but since colonies are annual and do not survive from year to year, the future "survival" (i.e. development) of a new colony is solely in the hands of the new-born queen and her ability to find a good place to hiberate and survive the winter. The future existence of several hundred bumblebees depends on her success. 

I've found very few scientific papers on Bumblebee hibernation (see Bumblebee Links) - one of the foremost appears to be from 1969 with a more recent study analysing that paper and some its weaknesses as well as providing some new data. 

Of course, this stands to reason: it is difficult to track bumblebees in the wild and given that both the process of entering a hibernation spot and emerging from it in the Spring are but momentary occasions, it's more or less down to chance to be in the right place at the right time to observe it. Of course, knowing a little about preferences and habitat could lead one to have a better clue of where to look and perhaps to be able to find bees during hiberation, but such a practice is not desirable. 

Therefore, we have gleaned what we can to come up with a strategy for possible hibernation in our garden. 

What we've learnt so far is that Bumbles prefer a north-facing location (which helps keep the nest coolness required to prevent them emerging too early in spring) and often hibernate in embankments, under tree stumps or roots and sometimes in/under walls. I've not seen an in-depth analysis of the preferences of each species, this may well be an unresearched area. What we do know is that the Queens will tend to burrow down in loose substrate in order to get deep enough not to get frozen during the winter. This is typically 6 - 8 inches, at least for a usual winter.

At first when I discovered this I nearly abandoned my plan altogether - it seemed to me, without getting the bees well underground, I couldn't guarantee their safety in an above-ground nest box, no matter how well insulated. It looked like I could be tricking them into an environment that would prove to be unsuitable for them.

Then, of course, I had my epiphany. Our boxes are equipped with infra-red cameras; basically very small heaters (as we know from how our "indoor" bumbles loved to gather under them) - so we can actually keep the boxes warm. By controlling the on/off times of the cameras we would in fact be able to keep the boxes at pretty much any temperature that is appropriate. I might even be able to automate the process. So, providing I avoid the risk of making Spring seem to come too early, we should be able to keep the bees very safe from a harsh winter - perhaps more so than out in the "wild".

I fully recognise that the chances of getting a queen to choose one of our artifical locations for hibernation is extremely slim, but we have the nestboxes, so there is no harm in trying to put them to good use.  

Box 1

We had two nestboxes to equip for hibernation so I thought I would try two different designs - each may encourage different types of bees or one may provide a better habitat than the other; either way, we will probably learn more by trying two designs rather than one. 

For the first box I placed a layer of very small decorative stones about 2 inches thick at one end of the box. Although the bees are reported to burrow 6 to 8 inches down, obviously this design is not going to allow them to do that. However, I thought it was sensible to give them the potential to burrow at least some distance, especially as the route down into the box is a good 8 inches in its own right. I filled with extra moss then used all of the "nesting material" that the boxes were actually supplied with. This is to fill the available space and provide insulation, bearing in mind that the bees usually burrow down below the surface of the ground so would not expect a "big" open space (unlike the spaces they would choose for a nest). 

There is tubing to take the bee into the depth of the box and, although not visible in the above picture, it is also equipped with an infra-red camera and a temperature sensor. 

I also thought it made sense to try and re-use the "hummock" I had made in Spring as a disguise for the nest box when queens were nest-searching. Not only would this provide extra insulation but would also help with the subterfuge in trying to create a north-facing "embankment". I had the brainwave to actually turn the shelter round so that it was open at the back and could go flush against the wall. I'm not quite sure why I didn't use it like this in the spring; it seems a far more obvious way to improve the disguise of the box. 

All that was required was to drill a hole to take the tube to the nestbox entrance and I decided to embed the thermometer neatly in the surface; here's the finished article. 

Box 1 under its shelter

I'm actually rather pleased with it!

Box 2 

Box 2 is our original "master" nestbox, which we brought indoors to care for the disabled bees. Consequently it is actually equipped with two cameras, but we are only connecting up one. 

I decided for this box I would try and create something for a bee to really burrow down into if it wanted. So I took the top off an old olive oil bottle, cut it to shape and filled it with more of the small decorative stones. This would lie on its side at and angle, with the stones loose enough for burrowing (well, that's the plan). There's about 3 inches of "burrow length" in this little chamber.

"tunnel chamber"

 The plan, therefore, was to install this chamber inside the box then pack it tight all round with insulating material. BCW kindly went out and gathered some more moss and I also used a bit of our old hamster bedding to create a nice cosy chamber. The only open space is immediately in front of the lower camera, just to give is something to look at. Again, a tube extends from the entrance towards the back wall of the box. I also placed some aluminium foil down one wall to help with insulation. 

xxx

box 2 layouti

This box is going to be less protected from the elements than box 1 because it is going under our hive "shelter" which is not a tight fit - thus the wooden box will be exposed directly to the elements. Insulation is therefore paramount and so another layer of webbing goes across the top and then I topped this off with some more aluminium foil (not shown). 

insulating roof layer

Again, it is equipped with a thermometer in the central chamber. I really don't think a Queen could ask for a better winter residence! 

The completed set up

Here's a picture of the completed setup. Both boxes have been mounted in a North facing position, they are very sheltered and shady. So, from an environmental point of view, the main threat is cold/frost as they are not below ground. (Although, that threat still exists for a bee below ground to a degree.) 

our "hibernation station" alongside the beepol lodge

Over the course of the next few days we will monitor the temperatures in the box and check for thermal stability - i.e. demonstration that they are insulated from conditions outside and maintain a more consistent temperature. We will also check the effect of having the internal cameras (i.e. infra-red) on and off. 

If I'm honest, I'm not really expecting anything to use them, but I'd like to think that a bufftail (which loves to go underground) might at least give the fully-covered box a nosey. I'm really pleased with it - ok so the colours are a bit garish - but I think it has the makings of something that could just about convince a bumble to investigate. 

We don't quite know when our (or any) Queens will start looking to hibernate - it may be a month or more yet - it may be sooner. But at least we now have something to offer them if they are curious.

Scratch the hatch

We're still being plagued by wasps attacking our bumble nest even though the brush on the beepol hive is preventing some of them getting in; some of them are smart (or at least persistent) enough to break through and find away in. 

We hastily tried a plastic flap stuck to the box and very quickly reversed that decision as it was clear it wasn't fit for purpose. 

The key issue is that the entrance hole on the lodge is set back from the resting ledge and tucked under the roof, close to the side; there's no space to create anything sophisticated.

So, at the weekend I decided to try a design that extended the hole (using is wedge of wood with a hole drilled through it) and stick the flap to that. It worked a lot better, and certainly kept the wasps out, but so too all the bees had a bit of trouble with it: in most cases we ended up helping them in and out. I didn't want to take any risks over them failing to get in and then deserting the nest.

So, tonight I began my third attempt. This time the plan was to build a complete fascia to mount onto the lodge, with a tube to the entrance behind the fasica, and then an entrance vestibule with sloping (i.e. gravity powered) plastic flap. It was quite a lengthy process to build, just from cardboard and some plastic cut out from packaging. Here's what I built:

 

We tested it tonight - and although the fit is good, we discovered the first problem: it's useless in the wind! Flapping wildly, a brave wasp managed to easily get inside the nest (although heaven knows why it was out in such inclement weather).

So, wracking the brains for the next design.. 

Handling Royalty

It's been a  busy fortnight tending to our new Beepol bumblebee hive. The weather was pretty inclement for our new bees to begin with, so it was a slow start for them.

In a way that was quite useful as it gave us chance to set up their lodge properly and get all the CCTV relocated and working (which meant, for example, tweaks to motion detection).

There was not (and has not been) a huge amount of activity from the nest over its first week and I wasn't really sure whether this should be a concern or not; the hive was supposed to have about 30 - 40 workers but I wasn't sure if being towards the back end of the "season" whether this number could be lower (it obviously was). In fact, by the time I got down to analysing our CCTV footage it looked like about 6 - 10 active workers; more on that later.  

We've actually made quite a number of interventions over the week so I'm going to highlight them in here and leave going into them in detail in due course. I've also been in contact with the expert at dragonfli (who supply the Beepol box) who's been answering some questions and providing some helpful information, so in due course I will fill in with some of his relevant information. 

Here are the things we've had to do over the last two weeks:

• bury a new queen - possibly the first queen out of the box - she was unable to fly
• cut the lid off the beepol box to allow room for the nest inside to get taller
• begin tracking detailed activity of workers and queens in/out of the nest (with a view to assessing its decline and queen emergence) 
• adding foam (steps) into the nest and honey (to help build reserves due to lack of workers) 
• later we had to fix the foam as the bees (quite incredibly) moved it
• resuce a tired, cold and wet worker and put her back in the nest
• deal with a wasp "invasion" - robbing the nest of honey
• produce the video from the CCTV that captured a Redtail male mating with one of our new queens
• trying various "trap door" designs on the front of the lodge to replace the "brushes" system
• complete the CCTV with the max number of cameras as we prepare for hibernation season

 All of these have had their own little saga, and time has got the better of me, so I'll deal with them in a few separate blogs.

New Queens

We were establishing the nest and lodge over the weekend of 1st August, which meant making some tweaks while the bee nestbox was already inside. Gulp! One of the adjustments was to the brush system which was slightly out of optimal position. The other was to remove the "flightpath" camera as it was not proving any value on the current lodge location and to relocate it to the wall of the house (looking side on) as well as fit the "entrance camera". The entrance camera provides the motion detection at the nest entrance (see below)

entrance camera mounted on lodge

It was after I had completed this work, with the utmost of care, that a bedraggled-looking Queen slowly emerged from the nest. 

Queen emerging

I cannot begin to tell you how my heart sank when I saw this. Not knowing any better my first instinct was that our queen had come out of the nest - perhaps to check on what the rattling and vibrations were. She looked bedraggled and tired - so it was a natural conclusion. We hoped she was just checking the nest integrity and would return inside, but she didn't. She dragged herself over the roof several times whilst we willed her to return. Then she fell off the edge of the roof and landed below the lodge against the greased bricks.

This wasn't ideal, but at least she was safe, so we sat and watched her, hoping for an opportunity to rescue her and get her back in the box without the risk of getting more grease on her. But it was not to be, she stayed there for about 3 hours getting progressively weaker. We came to the conclusion that whether or not she was our original queen or a new one, she had come out of the nest to die. Eventually by moving the bricks, we were able to scoop her up and place her in one of our other nestboxes where we could monitor her on camera. 

We did so over the course of the evening by which time she crawled and tucked herself into the inner entrance tube (this is designed to trick nest-search queens in spring that the nest is further underground than it really is). She stayed there and overnight passed away.

Our first emerging beepol Queen - who sadly never went further than our back up nestboxOnce we had retrieved her I took some macro photographs. It was clear from our close up analysis that one of her wings was damaged (creased) so we wondered whether she would have been able to fly at all. She seemed very weak when she came out of the nest - maybe she had been stuck in there without really being able to feed. We don't really know.

A Royal Entourage

Although it was sad to see her go, by the next morning our spirits were well and truly raised the next day by the emergence of another two queens.  We could tell they were new by their circling/memorisation procedure as they left the nest. And oh my! They were big! We've become accustomed to seeing tiny workers all season, so seeing a queen twice the size is quite startling at first! 

I started tracking activity over the course of the week and what became obvious was that more queens were emerging while the number of workers were declining. Reviewing CCTV showed 2 new queens emerging on the first day and then 3 on the second day. This was amazing! 

We were thrilled that our nest was fulfilling its destiny: producing queens to go off and mate, hibernate and begin next year's new colonies. It was really quite a touching moment to realise the "circle of life" had not suffered the devastating interruption that befell our Natupol colony. At last we could feel that keeping the bees had not just been a pointless exercise but at last we were contributing to, hopefully, their growth in numbers. 

We've counted a few more new queens over the 2 weeks we've had the box, but it seems as though lodging in the nest are about 4 or 5. It's hard to tell as their may have been some large workers, certainly to begin with, but their numbers have declined to, perhaps, 1 remaining. 

So, there has been a whole new process of study and learning with our new queens to understand this particular part of the bumblebee lifecycle. One of the most surprising things we have learnt is that we have multiple Queens inhabiting and co-existing in an otherwise-dormant nest. We presume that the "Mother" Queen is now dead (indeed, she may have been the one that came out and we tried to rescue). We also saw one very faded looking bumble in the box, which may have been our tired and overworked matriarch and who is no longer visible. 

So, here we have four or five queen bumblebees, treating our lodge as, well pretty much a travelodge: a place of security, warmth and safety to spend the night and rainy days, while otherwise going out foraging and looking for a mate.

This is all new territory for us, so we don't know what to expect of their behaviour. With that in mind, and with a view to trying to keep them resident as long as possible (partly to buy me time to build some "hibernation spaces"), we have tried to make their stay as comfortable and stress-free as possible. This has meant:

• trying to ensure that wax moth is kept out of the hive
• trying to ensure wasps are kept from robbing their nest honey reserves
• minimal disruption to the nest; we look inside at most once a day, under red light (invisible) at most for 30 seconds - since the nest is not being maintained by workers we need a supervisory role to check for any problems, such as infestation
• providing additional honey reserves into the nest if their own stocks appear low (strictly speaking this is not recommended due to the possibility of introducing disease from another colony; however, our queens only need to take this honey if their own reserves run low - e.g. after several days when they can't forage. In which case, we take the view, better to give them a chance to survive than perish from lack of energy and nutrition.) 

If anything, we're now putting a lot more effort into "managing" the nest, because it is not being managed by the colony and is more-or-less an empty "shell" that could turn into somewhat of a "biohazard" if we let nature's forces simply take over immediately! We've already seen a few flies, for example, showing an interest and getting inside the nest. 

Something we never expected to see happening was Queens bringing pollen back to the nest but we are certain we have observed this - here's a composite from our CCTV that shows the comparison in size between a worker and a queen, both with pollen:

size comparison of worker & bumblebee - both returning with pollenYou can see the queens bring a huge amount of pollen back on their legs and we can see it appearing in the nest. We take a comparison picture each evening inside the nest and we can see where the pollen has been deposited and how much was collected during the day. 

There's more to life than eating and sleeping!

Of course, our Queens are not programmed merely to rest and forage all day, but now to find a mate. We know that one of them at least has managed to do so, although it was perhaps not as successful as she intended! Our CCTV recorded one of our Queens flying back to the nest with a male Redtail in tow! Not only that but she dragged him (perhaps reluctantly!) into the nest where he emerged 20 minutes later. He came back 3 more times to investigate too: on one occasion getting back into the nest, but otherewise thwarted by the brushes (what can you say, he's a boy, perhaps not as savvy as our girls). 

Here's a still of one of his return visits, quite clearly a redtail:

male redtail revisiting the nest after mating the previous dayHere's the video of the full sequence:

 We don't know whether she would have realised it was a Redtail, so we can only hope she would have gone out at a later date to find a successful (bufftailed) mate. 

Settling In, looking in

A busy day of "project work" today, helping the new beepol hive to settle in. 

One of the main jobs was for me to finally complete the CCTV setup. I've used essentially the same configuration as previously:

video tech: click the image for a fullsize version

The CCTV system is more than mild form of passing entertainment - it has actually become the mainstay of our hive setup, providing the means to monitor the safety/progress of the bees and also provide research data about their behaviour. The main job today was to  fit the "entrance camera" which monitors the entrance and exit holes and is able to trigger motion/detection and recording. The mini camera is also infrared equipped so it can detect any activity at night (e.g. wax moth lurking). I mounted it on a small wooden beam "no more nails-ed" to the side of the bee lodge:

IR entrance cameraIt gives a great view of the entrance holes and in particular, during these early days, will allow us to check whether he bees are able to navigate the "anti-wax-moth" brush system. 

The full lodge setup now looks like this:

beepol lodge technology and camera setupThere are two external cameras (as seen above) plus one inside. A spray painted takeway box glued to the wall provides a convenient junction box, a-la "chocbox" - and protects the CCTV connections. The thermometer has yet to be mounted in the box, but that's something we have to do when we next open the lodge (which will be planned to encompass several jobs, including improving the seal between the base and the lid).

I am still contemplating putting a second camera inside the lodge to get better coverage of activity but for the timebeing we're at the limit of our CCTV system. However, I have also ordered a CCTV switcher from eBay to try. This will enable one of the camera feeds to actually support for cameras on a sequence, effectively extending our system to support 7 cameras. I've gone for the cheapest (simple) switcher for now (<£20) however I did contemplate a full 16 channel processor which would allow all manner of camera splits, picture in picture and motion detect. However since that would then provide for up to 19 cameras into one 4 channel DVR I felt I would soon quickly become frustrated by the mismatch in the system and the inability to record exactly the way I wanted to. So, my decision for now is to see how it goes with the cheap switcher and consider a 16 channel DVR as an upgrade for next year. 

I also tidied up the cabling (currently 5 cameras/cables being run round the garden) and routed some of it through some cheap "pipe foam" (for insulating pipes). This is cheap and easy to work with - though in full course I will install proper trunking. There is not much point switching to wireless cameras because the cameras still need power routed round the garden!

Wax Moth & Infrared

The additional external camera on the lodge further raises the spectre of whether the infrared has the potential to attract wax moth. I've done a little more research on this but there doesn't seem to be readily available conclusive information. The main text discussing how moths are atttracted to light and infrared is a book from 1972! It must be out of print because secondhand copies of it are about £70! Moths are attracted to flames and one theory is males are attracted because the infrared emissions from the flame are like the pheremones from the female. (Can't quite compute how 'light' is equivalent to 'smell', but there you go). 

It doesn't really matter if we attract males, because obviously these will not lay eggs in the bee nest. In general, however, evidence and experience seems to suggest that it's the ultraviolet end of the spectrum that tends to attract the moths (in common with most insects).

However, we don't want to leave anything to chance; so I decided to rig up the extra infrared light I was using indoors (to heat and light Holly's nest) on the garage wall to see whether anything is attracted to it. I also made another two wax moth traps (coke bottle with a hole in it, filled with vinegar, sugar, water and banana peel) to place near the light. Over the coming evenings we'll whether we catch anything.

Entrance Brushes

We are following the beepol advice to add brushes (made from paintbrushes) to the lodge entrance/exit holes. However, we are introducing them slowly by not fully sealing the entrance for the timebeing. The idea is to train the bees to use the entrance holes and get used to the look of the brushes and pushing their way past them whilst slightly ajar, before having to actually push right through them. From what we've seen on the CCTV they are not too keen at pushing through the brush when fully 'closed' (unless we have it too stiff) although we have seen one or two attempt and achieve it. So this is something we will monitor carefully over the coming days. 

We tried to follow the Beepol instructions for making the brushes but found it all a bit messy and that with one piece of tape holding the whole thing together, the bristles would just fall out and it was impossible to get it to a thickness that seemed strong enough to prevent a moth edging its way in. So we came up with a system of multiple layers each taped together. This worked well - possibly too well if we find the bees can't get through it! We'll report back on the final working design.

initial "brush design" for wax moth protection