Of Bumblebees and Lilies

I've had hardy water lilies in a pot for several years now. They moved with me from the old house. Each year they send up lots of pretty green lily pads, and nothing else. This year, they signaled their approval of the new house by giving me a bright, beautiful water lily blossom!

That weird sticky thing next to it is a limb off our old corkscrew willow tree. We'd cut it back in preparation for selling the house, and we'd thrown the limbs in a pile to use in backyard projects. Lo and behold, some of them sprouted leaves, so we stuck two of them into our pot of water lilies, and they've rooted. As soon as we figure out where to put them, we'll plant them and have beautiful new corkscrew willows!

And completely unrelated to the lily, I took some photos of our bumblebees at the entrance to their home. I'm still not telling where they're located, but they seem to be busy and happy and fat and beautiful, so we're just leaving them alone. I checked my bumblebee field guide, and I believe they are Bombus rufocinctus. They are listed as liking to nest in walls and buildings, and as being testy around their nest (hence my husband being stung when he bothered them.) I can't be certain about that without consulting an entomologist specializing in bees, but it's close enough for my tastes. Beautiful little guys, they are!

Disappointed

Got a call last night from Will Dart, saying he had a nice swarm to bring me today. Got it arranged, and he dropped the swarm off in my hive around 9:30am. Had them all settled, and he left.

By the time I got home at 1pm, things looked a little wonky...very few bees hanging around, some doing a little orienting flying but none fanning, and really, not the volume I would have expected. And no buzzing sound, and he'd said this was a very strong, large swarm.

By 3:30 no bees were in evidence at all. I opened the observation port, and they were all gone. Well, I had two or three confused stragglers and one dead one. Little bit of bee poop, a few spots where it looked like they might have been attempting to start some wax attachments on the bars, and that was it. No signs of trauma, wasn't super hot in the box, nothing. No idea why they left. I'm really, really disappointed.

I've never heard of a swarm leaving a hive, but the guy who brought me mine said it's the second one in a week he's had vacate the new hive. He couldn't find anything wrong with mine...good construction, appropriate woods, unstained, untreated, no glue, nothing. My thought was perhaps a really large swarm deemed the space too small (it's a relatively small hive). I don't know. And now I don't know if I can try to house another swarm in it or not.

I have a call in to two other beekeeper contacts, but have yet to hear anything. I did a little poking around on the web, and as far as I can tell, it's highly unusual for a homeless swarm to reject a decent new home. And I was really looking forward to having them here. Monday I will be assembling my Warre hive and beginning the search for a colony to install in it, but my hopeful level has dropped significantly.

And in other bee related news, it turns out I have a colony of bumblebees already happily living on my property. Not quite what I'd hoped for, but they're more than welcome here. I'm reading a book about them called Humblebee Bumblebee. It's really quite good, by the same person who wrote the Orchard Mason Bee book I like. I will definitely be attempting to provide good overwintering and hibernation spots for the fall queens, and then to provide good nesting sites in the spring.