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Bumble Boosters Archives | |
| Where can I find seeds for planting a bee garden?
Response From: Bob Feurer Clover as "bee pasture" In doing some Internet research, mostly on United Kingdom sites, they talk about "bee pastures" like we would talk about "butterfly gardens"; plantings that are done specifically for their value in attracting and supporting a beneficial insect. Anyhow, I asked our local county extension agent about planting and maintaining clover plots and she forwarded the message to a source at UNL. The message is below if it might be of interest to any of you. "I mailed some information pertaining to sweet clover and red clover production to you today. Generally, the sweetclover will reseed itself year after year, while red clover lasts a couple years. Stock Seed Farms (Murdock, NE) might be a good source of small seed quantities (1-800-759-1520)." We have a couple of small berms in the arboretum that have basically been overrun with weedy species. I am contemplating renovating these and putting them to clover. |
| How can I pin and organize my specimens for a specimen collection?
Response From: De Tonack I would like to share a technique one of our students is using to organize and identify bumble bee specimens. He took the top of a small styrofoam cooler and placed a numbered grid on top. Each specimen is pinned to a square and he then records the place and time of capture plus the identification on a computer database. De Tonack |
| Where should we place our nesting habitats? Response From: Doug Golick Placement of boxes in different locations is encouraged. Just be sure to record specific information about how and where you placed the boxes. For example: Box type (boxes names can be found on the teacher resources page), location placed if set on ground, underground, if above ground (like a fence post) how many feet or meters above ground, and the exact map location. You could even go as far as to include Longitude Lat. or Plate map locations. If you record a location like Uncle Joe's barn it's hard for anybody but you to know where that particular location is so a map location is much more meaningful. If the boxes do become occupied which box type and what species is inhabiting a specific box. Species data can be collected by venturing near the box and collecting a bumble bee as it leaves the nesting box. Be sure to stand 10 feet away from entrance of the nest. As long as you don't disturb the box directly, or stand very near to the entrance there shouldn't be a risk of causing defensive behavior from the bumble bees. Dr. Ellis and I have stood 2 feet from nests in a natural setting, and haven't been stung yet. I would however, recommend using a net to collect your specimens in this instance. |
| When is the earliest date that I can expect to see the first generations of bumble bee workers?
Response From: Doug Golick May 1st was actually the first time I saw workers in Lincoln. You will progressively see more and more workers as the month goes on. By June bumble bees will seem rather common in spots. I wouldn't worry too much about students damaging local populations by taking bees out of environment. For every worker you collect, there are five times as many you don't get. The real issue is collecting queens early in the year and taking them out of the environment. You will be able to find queens out foraging and searching for nests until the end of May. There are probably even a few queens of various species that haven't yet emerged from over wintering. This is especially true in Northern and Western Nebraska. |
| How close can we place nest boxes near each other without reducing the attractiveness of the habitats to queens?
Response From: Doug Golick There is no known limit to how many habitats you can place in a given area or how close in proximity you can place habitats before they become undesireable to queens. I have read studies and have been told by bumble bee researchers that queens will nest in stacked habitats or within feet of each other. I have observed, on more than one occasion, two "naturally occcuring" nests within 3 feet of each other. It appears to me that proximity is not an important factor. |
| Are there additional pre-tests that can be administered to students?
Response From: Beth Briney I am sending what we did here at the Zoo School prior to watching a video on pollinators: We typed the following questions on plain paper, front & back, leaving room for the drawing.
a. Whay are bumble bees important? Explain why you think this. (Please give at least 3 reasons.) {very few were able to give more than 1} b. Where do bumble bees live? Describe places in which you might find bumble bees. c. How are bumble bees different from honey bees? We've only given the student responses a cursory look, so we don't have a detailed idea of how useful this assessment was. We will repeat it as a post assessment after we have done more bee work. Happy boosting! |
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Can bees fly in the rain?
Response From: Doug Golick Insects in general are not too fond of rain. Moisture is a real danger to insects because they can't break the surface tension of water. As a result most insects are easily drowned. Last summer I observed several bumble bees who had been caught out in the rain while they were foraging on white clover. They were either dead or holding on for dear life to the clover blooms. The water matted down their hair so they looked like wet rats. Light rain will typically limit Bombus activity to returning to the nest to wait it out or taking shelter under leaves or other structures. Saying this, I would not however be surprised if you happen to see a bumble bee trying to fly while there is a light sprinkle. |
| How and where to release a queen?
Response From: Doug Golick Capturing a bumble bee queen who has pollen in her corbicula, cooling her down, identifying and releasing her has no impact on the success of continued nesting. Just be sure that you release the queen around the spot you captured her. By releasing her within the proximity of capture she can re-orient herself and find her way back to the nest. |
| What is the lowest air temperature that you can find bumble bees flying in?
Response From: Marion Ellis I have found bumble bees flying at temperatures as low as 45 F. At this temperature they have to stop frequently and shiver to keep their thorax temperature warm enough for flight. |
| Which queens are suitable for collecting and initiating nests in our habitats?
Response From: Marion Ellis Bumble bee queens bearing pollen loads have already initiated a nest and are not suitable for trapping to initiate an observation hive. For starting an observation unit, you should collect a queen without a pollen load. Queens searching the ground for potential nest sites are especially good candidates. |
| What is the honey to water ratio for the nectar solution fed to confinded queens?
Response From: Marion Ellis Honey fed to confined queens should be about 60:40 honey to water - it does not have to be exact. |
| How do I ship my specimens for identification?
Response From: Doug Golick Place your shipping boxes in a larger cardboard box. Make sure that the specimen boxes are protected from damage by incasing them in styrofoam chips or newspaper. The main thing is to keep them from moving or bouncing around during shipping and for the insulating material to absorb some of the shock. The outer cardboard box should be big enough to hold the specimen boxes with enough room around them for the shock absorbing material. Pack em' tight! Outer wrap can be brown paper or if your box is clean looking just attach the address to the front. Send Speciemens to: Bumble Boosters Department of Entomology 208 Plant Industry BLDG University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68583-0816 |
| How can you tell if a queen has established a nest or not?
Response From: Doug Golick If she has pollen in her pollen baskets, it means she has established a nest and is collecting pollen for the pollen lump in her nest. |
