Bee piccies, as requested by naurring

[enismirdal]

I've taken a few photos of the bees, but my camera and the bees were not really that cooperative! My macro-fu is non-existent, and they don't photograph too well through perspex so I was trying to snap them without letting any out.


This is the bee colony! I've tried to label the main interesting bits to give a feel for what's going on in there! (Better resolution but unlabelled pic here).


A quick peek in the naughty box. The lego brick is like a secondary feeder - the main feeder only has a small hole so only one bee at a time can feed, but holds a lot more sugar solution. They seem to prefer the lego brick!

The marked bee was one I was quite fond of - she's rather big and always seemed rather placid. She's retired now, as I needed some new foragers to come out, so she got relocated to the naughty box.


A slightly dodgy picture of a bee on a feeder. The feeder is empty as they are hungry bees, but I gave them food on plastic training chips instead (you can just about see one behind the feeder). That bee is the same one as the bee in the middle of the colony pic, with the red and blue marks.


Very very dodgy quality picture of a Bombus terrestris xanthopus queen in the access tunnel to her flight arena. She wouldn't keep still and there's so much reflection off the tunnel! It's not the queen of the colony, just a random young queen who presumably emerged in the last couple of days.

Those are all the ones that came out semi-well - my battery died and the camera didn't like running off mains power.

Now to work on the stupid "Skills and Training Report" for my advisory panel meeting tomorrow. Gah gah gah.

Comments

[jassanja.livejournal.com]

Interresting pics

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

Ooh, these are fascinating. Thanks so much for posting them. How many bees are in the colony? I think you mentioned a while back but... Why do they prefer the lego brick feeder? Sociability? Or is access easier?
*stops asking questions, leaves*

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

This colony is a rather small one and seems to have (from a rough head count) around 60-70 individuals. The biggest they can get to in those nestboxes is somewhere around 200-250 I think.

I assume they like the lego brick feeder because it's easy to get to and they don't have to wait for the other bees to finish before they can drink!

[sylc.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I'd go for the lego cube too! So much more fun! *nodsnodsnods* XDXDXD

They look so cute and fluffy. ♥ Thanks for sharing and making me smile. :)

[naurring.livejournal.com]

Piccies!!!!! Thanks for posting them, they're really beautiful and interesting.

I love bumblebees, they always look so cute and cuddly. *cuddles bees. Carefully*

[erestor.livejournal.com]

Those are great pictures, thank you! I've seen a couple of colonies up close, but not that kind. Very interesting! I love your bees. :)

Might be OT, but we have a fantastic display of termites at our zoo here, about three meters high. Scientists of our local university study them. I don't know how I jumped from "bees" to "termites" here but... ehr. Yes. Lovely bees! :-D

[mirien.livejournal.com]

These are amazing, I was completely fascinated. Thanks for posting them.

[nienna-weeper.livejournal.com]

BEES! YAY! I love these piccies! Bumble bees are sooo cute, aren't they? And so docile here, usually... You can watch them quite closely and they don't get cranky.

I was reading about Bumble Bees the other day after reading something you'd written and never realized just how many species of Bumble Bees there are... all over the world, yes, but so many different ones in N. America and even just in Washington State...



I'm silly, I know. *grin*

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! They're GORGEOUS icons! *adores*

I really need to do an icon upload - I've collected so many recently but haven't got around to putting them up yet.

Bumblebees are impressively diverse. I was pretty amazed to discover the diversity too!

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Oooh, the termites sound impressive. There's someone in our department who has done some work on them - they sound very interesting (though they're sort of ugly, especially the queen, hehe!).

And hey, bees and termites have a fair bit in common, being social and all...

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked! I could watch the colony all day - I think they are getting sick of looking up and seeing me ogling them!