A Bee's Needs

https://www.realclearscience.com/quick_and_clear_science/2018/01/15/accidental_discovery_could_save_bees_from_their_greatest_threat.html

How do bees decide where to live?

-Scout bees advocate for a potential nest site by the duration & vigor of their dancing for that site.

(See picture).

-Scouts have located two potential sites, one with a large entrance (on left) & one with a more suitable smaller entrance on the right side.

-Each Scout bee returns to the bivouac (Swarm cluster) & performs a dance advocating for her site (Top centre 10:00)

-The Scouts advocating for the site on the right dance longer & more vigorously than the Scouts from the left site.
Thus recruiting more bees to inspect the right side, on finding it suitable, they also start to advocate for the right side, returning to the bivouac (Swarm cluster) to recruit yet more through dancing.
The support for the right side has increased more than the support for the left site. (Centre 13:00)

-So through the democratic process the number of scouts dancing & advocating for the site on the right has overwhelmed those numbers advocating for the site on the left, & the left site ends up being excluded from the selection process.
(Bottom 16:00)

(Remind me, Next Time Buzz Runners)

I was called to a small colony that had packed it's own bag and needed to be relocated, I can only imagine the surprise that the person cleaning up the dumped suitcase received as they rolled it over.😲
They are now safely relocated and doing well.

ALERT: Dwarf honey bee
A ship recently docked at Melbourne was found to have a nest of dwarf honeybee's on board. Upon inspection, the hive was queenless, leading investigators to believe that a queen and swarm may have departed the ship either at Melbourne or at previous docks, Brisbane and Port Kembla.

NSW DPI urges all beekeepers in the Port Kembla and Wollongong area to keep an eye out for suspect nests. Swarms typically look for nesting sites on branches surrounded by foliage. Dwarf honey bees (Apis florea and Apis andreniformis) are the world’s smallest honey bees, only growing to 10mm.

Report suspect dwarf honey bees
Call the Exotic Plant Pest hotline on 1800 084 881,
Submit an online form, OR
Email [email protected]
Include a photo of the suspect bee/nest as part of your report.

Picture of Dwarf honey bees

If you missed it, here is some groundbreaking work being done with Australian bees.

Landline 18/7/2021
The report starts at 1:50 & runs to 14:50.

Check it out here:

Landline : ABC iview Open in iview app Landline In 2021 Landline turns 30, celebrating three decades telling the stories of farmers, businesses and communities from Australia's rural and regional heartland. Hosted by award-winning journalist Pip Courtney. Sundays 12.30pm on ABC TV + iview

A small cluster that needed a better place to live.

Found this little fuzzy one today...
At more than twice the size of our European honey bee that we have in Aus Apis mellifera, and with a deep gravelly buzz, (kind'a like how a Harley Davidson lets you know its coming 😄)

Approx 27mm long, 14mm wide,
She has a fold away proboscis, it lays flat down the chest out of the way for flight.

A bumblebee is any of over 250 species in the genus Bombus, part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related genera are known from fossils.

Lifespan: 28 days
Scientific name: Bombus
Family: Apidae
Class: Insecta

(Found this one in NZ, but they are in Tassie some how turned up 1990-92.....)

https://invasives.org.au/blog/tasmanian-bumblebee-decision-defies-the-evidence/