Yesterday I mowed the lawn, it'd got pretty long partially because I'd not been able to cut it due to rain and partly because well I have more interesting things to do... Anyway as I pondered the wisdom of enjoying the sun with my top off whilst I pushed a loud whirring device around the lawn watching bees issuing from and returning to the hives in the corner I noticed some bees taking an interest in the ground. I looked a little closer wondering what they were doing and as I admired the bright orange fur covering their bodies it occured to me that my bees don't actually have bright orange fur. They weren't my bees. They weren't even honey bees.
After a little Googling I identified them as Common Carder Bees, or Bombus Pascuorum if you're not much fun at parties. It's a type of Bumble Bee which can nest above or below ground. The patch of ground they've chosen is where I moved a shrub from a few weeks ago so it's probably fairly soft. They seem to have two entrances one of which goes underneath the paving slab my nucleus hive is standing on, so it could even be two seperate colonies I suppose. Apparently they're really common (hence the name d'oh!), although I've never noticed orange bees before. According to wikipedia their colonies can reach populations of up to 150 individual bees. They seem incredibly placid and didn't mind me crouching by their nest entrances holding a cameraphone a few cm from them.
Their nest entrace is less than a foot below the entrance to the nucleus hive, I have no idea if they'll interact with my honey bees but I haven't seen any fighting yet. Whilst in recent years the media has highlighted the decline in honey bee populations there's about 250 species of bee in the UK and they're all under pressure at the moment so I'm going to be carefull not to disturb them and will see how they fare. They seem very placid I very much doubt they'll be robbing my hives but even if they did at full strength the Carder's will by outnumbered about a thousand to one by the honey bees.
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| Common Carder Bees, I think. |
Their nest entrace is less than a foot below the entrance to the nucleus hive, I have no idea if they'll interact with my honey bees but I haven't seen any fighting yet. Whilst in recent years the media has highlighted the decline in honey bee populations there's about 250 species of bee in the UK and they're all under pressure at the moment so I'm going to be carefull not to disturb them and will see how they fare. They seem very placid I very much doubt they'll be robbing my hives but even if they did at full strength the Carder's will by outnumbered about a thousand to one by the honey bees.
