Unwelcome Visitors

Last week whilst inspecting Hive2 I got to the final frame and noticed some cobweb in one corner. I assumed this meant wax moth larvae. Not the best thing to find in a hive but it can happen from time to time.

It wasn't wax moth. Turning the frame round to examine the far side I loosed a loud expletive as I was unpleasantly surprised to find a huge spider a few inches from my hand. It wasn't one of those inoffensive raisins on skinny leg type spiders we see so much of, this was a fat legged, silvery grey refugee from Middlearth. Luckily she was busy with a worker bee. Her web making skills weren't up to much but there was another cocooned bee and an egg sac in there too. I'm certainly not arachnophobic but it's fair to say I'm not hugely keen on finding large unexpected spiders near to my fingers -the latex gloves I was wearing suddenly felt far too thin.

Initially I decided to try and take a photograph but quickly changed my mind. Like I said she was pretty big and I thought she might nick my camera. I also didn't want her to run onto me or to escape near the hives to spend the rest of the year chewing on my workers. Holding the frame at arms length I rushed over to the patio and with one welly booted foot kicked her off and stamped on her. To any onlookers I imagine it was just like that bit in The Lord of the Rings where Samwise Gamgee defeated Shelob.With a hivetool I removed the mess of webbing and as I didn't want a tribe of spiderlings feasting on my bees I lit the blowtorch and took take care of the egg sac.

After a lot of Googling I think what I'd found was a particularly large female Mouse Spider. They're called Mouse Spiders because their grey velvety fur looks a little like that of a mouse, well a little like a mouse if you overlook the fact it's got no tail, 8 legs, 8 eyes, fangs, mandibles and makes webs. They're one of the few venomous spiders in the UK that can bite humans and as English arachnids go I gather they're rather aggressive. Hope not to encounter any more of them this year.

With that unpleasant little experience in the past I found another visitor to the hives this week. Inspecting Hive1 I'd removed the Demaree and the Super and had just moved two frames onto a perch to give me room to work in the hive when a black hairy shape poked up between the dummy board and the hive wall. I stopped work to see what happened next and up popped a very large bumble bee being harried by a few workers. Going by the colouring and the size I'm pretty sure it was a Tree Bumble Bee (Bombus Hypnorum) Queen.

Whilst the Bumble Bee is far bigger than the Honey Bees it was hugely out numbered. She was actually far too big to fit in the bee space between the frames and at one point tried to go back into the larger gap between the dummy board and hive wall. The workers clung to her and I think were probably biting her, don't think any actually managed to sting her - perhaps she was too heavily armoured for them. In the end the she managed to fly away.

Tree Bumblebee Queen vs. Honeybee Workers

I'd expected the honey bees to be a bit more proactive on the home defence front with alarm pheromones triggering lots aggro and the mature bees going onto a war footing but that wasn't the case at all, they were no more feisty for the rest of the hive inspection than any other time.

Tree Bees

On Sunday afternoon my neighbour told me about somebody who had had a colony of honey bees arrive in their garden. They were in a bird box so I suspected it was probably some sort of bumble bee rather than honeybees but a gardener had been fairly sure they were honeybees, so I made a phone call loaded up the car with my empty nuc, a box of frames with foundation, smoker, tools, gloves, wellies, smock, aspivenin and some toothpaste in case of the sting and guided by satnav drove over to Anlaby to pick them up.

Bird Box of Bees

The bees were in a bird box which a quick glance told me was too small to house a colony of honey bees. They really want something about the size of an actual beehive and the bird box probably had a capacity of 2 or 3 litres. The bird box was located about head height on a wooden fence behind some tall plants and shaded below adult trees. We could see bees going in and out of the box and buzzing about near it. The small fluffy bees had an orange thorax and a black abdomen some of which had a white tip. Easily identifiable as Tree Bees (Bombus hypnorum), a type of bumble bee first spotted in the UK in 2001 and spreading ever since. The Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society maintains a map of Tree Bee sightings. Whilst this is a fairly recent arrival to our shores and they're spreading very quickly it's believed they don't pose any threat to indigenous wildlife. In fact whilst other pollinators are on the decline Tree Bees seem to be bucking the trend and doing rather well for themselves. As somoe as I posted abut it on facebook friend told me that his parents who live over near Driffield has had the same thing happen in one of their bird boxes too.

Heavily Propolised Entrance

They're actually very placid bees and I was able to stand directly in front of the bird box to take a picture holding my phone only a few inches from the entrance - although I don't suggest you try that at home kids.. You can see from the photograph they've reduced the entrance to the birdhouse so it's big enough to let one bee through at a time. Nobody does anything with Tree Bees as far as I know but looking at that reduced entrance I'm wondering if they'ed possibly be useful as a source of propolis or wax. It may be something worth looking into if I can get some hold of some used bird boxes. In nature they live in holes in trees but nowadays as well as bird boxes they've also been found in clothes drier hoses, chimneys and under eaves.

I explained to the home owner they were probably good for her garden and shouldn't really be a problem, the nest was tucked away and they'll die off by Winter anyway at which point the queen will go somewhere hibernate. I suggested that in Winter they get move the box though otherwise it'll probably get reused next year, she has a friend with some woods it will probably go to. Just after I'd explained they weren't really aggressive one decided to start buzzing my head persistently so I swatted it away a couple of times and beat a retreat. Whilst Tree Bees are normally rather placid if you interfere with their hive they can mobilise the colony to defend it, so if you find some your best bet is not to interfere with them. I also explained that the drones can be very noisy  when they start congregating around the colony entrance but they don't actually have stings. You can identify drone Tree Bees easily because they have the white tipped abdomens.

Bee Craft published some information on Tree Bees which is available online here.