enismirdal | The usual critters

I thought I'd make a post about our bees. Behind a cut as if I am obsessed enough to be dreaming about bees one night in two, the rest of you must be sick and tired of me mentioning them.

I thought I'd describe the bees we have in the lab at the moment.

We currently have several colonies of three different subspecies on the go. We've recently got rid of a couple of colonies so it's less hectic now.

As you enter the lab, the first flight arena is empty. The second flight arena contains our beloved wild bees. These are Bombus terrestris xanthopus, from Corsica. These are the most adorable bees, black all over except for a pinkish-orange tail and brown legs. The colouration makes them very endearing.

However, they're complete nutcases. At the slightest opportunity they'll escape and zip around the lab like mad things on crack. The labtech is getting thoroughly sick of chasing them up and down with a net! They've stung him at least once... Fortunately not got me yet, but I have worried a few times when forced to decide between collecting data from my bees and avoiding the insect flying towards my head!

Next is my flight arena, the big one. It's got Bombus terrestris dalmatinus in. These look like the common garden bumblebee all you Europeans are probably used to seeing (I think the American ones are a bit different) - black and yellow stripes with a white tail. This is the usual commercial subspecies that the supplier sends. However, dalmatinus is a subspecies from southeastern Europe - I believe when they need new wild queens (once every ten years, perhaps - these bees are hopelessly inbred) they get them from some Greek/Turkish islands. It would make far more sense to use Bombus terrestris terrestris, from western and central Europe, or Bombus terrestris audax, which is the UK variant, but I suspect dalmatinus is easier to cultivate in enormous numbers in captivity.

However, dalmatinus is not always a terribly nice bee. I suspect it's partly the subspecies and partly the inbreeding, but some are a bit psycho (though most are calm enough). The main issue is that they're slowly ousting the native terrestris terrestris and audax bees from their habitats by outcompeting them. This is because tomato growers aren't careful enough about preventing them from escaping into the wild and bee companies keep selling dalmatinus and not native varieties (for largely understandable reasons of competition and keeping their prices down).

After that are two smaller flight arenas with Bombus terrestris canariensis. I love canariensis. They look absolutely vicious - huge and black all over except for their white tails. But they're happy and friendly bees! No one in our lab has been stung by one as far as I know; when they escape they bumble around happily (or crawl on the floor, as the ones on Monday did as the lights were off at the time!). And the ones that have ended up in the naughty box, rather than sitting in a corner and moping, have got to work and built their own little nest. At one point the workers were even laying male eggs!

There is another colony or two of xanthopus in the dark room, I think, as well as a few of dalmatinus. Unfortunately, neither of the xanthopus colonies is making males at the moment, which is sad as the one in the lab is making queens and since you can only get these bees from Corsica it might be rather useful to mate some queens and rear some more colonies. My vote is that we take some of the canariensis males, which are available in rather ample supply, and make crazy hybrid bees. Hehe!

Naughty boxes are basically nesting boxes with the entrance hold plugged. When a bee refuses to go home, or has been tested already and needs to be removed from the colony so the colony will send out new foragers, you have two options, in practice: catch the bee and freeze it or put it in the naughty box. Being a sentimental soul and someone who finds bees' behaviour in the naughty box rather entertaining, I go for the naughty box route.

My naughty box bees have currently decided they want a "honeypot" in one of the "windows" (airholes) in their box. So they've built this nice little wax front and are filling the cavity with sugar solution. Strange things. Looks sort of like a mini house-martins' nest. There are currently bees from 3 different colonies in my naughty box - my bees, and also some escapees I didn't know where to put at the time. The "immigrant" bees are, unfortunately, the last of their kind; both their natal colonies have now been frozen. But they live on, at least for a little while longer. It's a happy, cosmopolitan and slightly dopey society in there.

Anyway, if you're still reading you're either as crazy as me or probably very bored indeed! I'm stopping and going to bed! Night all!