OVER THE PAST number of weeks whilst outside you will likely and hopefully have heard the unmistakable and oh so welcome low hum which arrives with the warming days of spring.
No, not the distant sound of contractors flailing every hedgerow in sight to within an inch of their existence – but rather the polar opposite – the life-affirming sweet hum of big furry bees.
Bumblebees.
The girls are back in town. When you hear this hum you know you’re in the presence of royalty. The only royalty that deserves a bow – Queen Bumblebees.
If you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the source of this buzzing in early spring you’re more than likely to be encountering a bumblebee queen rather than a female worker. Queens are generally a lot bigger in size than the female workers, which they will soon produce, and even the males, which they will decide to produce later in the summer.
Waking up
Newly emerged from hibernation these humble queens are back on the wing and on a mission – actually two missions – they’re mightily hungry (wouldn’t you be) and they’re homeless – so they need to feed up and find a suitable site to establish their palace. Their nest.
Food comes first as better life decisions are rarely made on an empty stomach. This is why the availability of early forage is so so important.
Forage, what is that? Flowers, darling. Loads and loads of early blooming spring flowers. Dandelions, snowdrops, wild primrose, dead nettle, hellebores, crocus, snake’s head fritillary, chickweed, wallflowers, lesser Celandine to name a few, and that most overlooked and underestimated of our native trees – the Pussy Willow.
A tree oft treated as an unwanted weed by many throughout our countryside but if you take a moment to notice at this time of year will have more royalty on its catkins than a balcony in Westminster can muster these days.
Setting up home
Once they have filled their tummies with nectar the queens set off on the second part of their mission. House-hunting. Not having estate agent bees available to help, the queens must seek out a suitable nest site themselves and this is why you will observe them flying low to the ground zig-zagging from spot to spot at this time of year.
They will stop to check out any site that they deem to have potential – crawling into tufts of long grass, into crevices in old stone walls, holes at the base of trees, spaces under garden sheds, unused rodent nests. Nowhere is off the menu.
They will disappear from sight into a hole for a minute or so – giving the place a proper survey – often emerging from an alternative entrance you hadn’t even spotted – then move on presumably irked that what advertised itself as a luxury two-bed turned out to be a complete doer-upper with dodgy plumbing and a fold-down bed in the kitchen come shower room.
Eventually, though she will find a suitable spot and get down to the serious business of laying her eggs and ensuring that her species continues to exist despite what sometimes seems like our best efforts to prevent – around 40% of bee species worldwide are currently believed to be in serious trouble.
During these food and house hunting flights at this time of year, these newly emerged queens take breaks. Lots of them. Their internal tachometer tells them to turn off the engine for a while and chill.
And they do.
And for up to an hour at a time.
There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re on a flight stopover, that’s all. Having a few moments. When they’re ready they’ll simply fire up the engines and get back to the flying thing.
Now we, being, for the most part, the caring creatures we are, might see these resting bees and, knowing that bees, in general, are in trouble, our presumption might be that if she’s not flying and just sitting there she must need our help. And she might. We might be right. But how do we know?
How can you help?
As a rule of thumb, the best thing to do is just leave her be. If she’s not in imminent danger of being trodden on (sometimes to a bee a pathway just seems like the ideal stopover location) or being hurt by a dog or cat – you get the drift – then just leave her rest.
If she is in danger you can gently move her to a sheltered spot or a nearby flower. Don’t just pick her up. Gently scoop her up on a leaf or use your credit card or a piece of cardboard. Offer her a twig or something similar to climb on to. Avoid picking a flower to do this as that flower needs to be alive to feed more bees!
You might find that as soon as you spring to action she ‘comes to’ and immediately takes to the air.
That’s alright. She’s good.
Again if she doesn’t appear to be in danger – leave her. Keep an eye on her. If however after about an hour she is still there then your intervention might be helpful.
She might need an energy boost.
Nectar.
Get her to a nearby flower and when you think flower remember dandelions are flowers. We’ve been trained to think of them as weeds. Useless. A nuisance to the perfect lawn. Let’s get this straight – Dandelions are vital.
Also, be aware that daffodils are the boy bands of floral society. Pretty, two a penny, short-lived careers and back for a reunion tour every spring but generally absolutely useless to bees and insects. They’ve been bred for looks not function unless you are lucky enough to have the old wild daffodils which are both relevant and stunning.
If for some reason you can’t locate a flower – unfortunately, not uncommon, we need to fix that – then as a last resort you can help her by offering her a white sugar/water mix. Around a 50:50 mix – less sugar if anything.
Never offer her honey. But you’re thinking bees. So you’re probably thinking honey. It seems like the obvious conclusion. No. Honey may contain pathogens that could actually be harmful to bumblebees. So don’t do it.
Once the queen takes on some sugars and warms up you should find that she will, after a short while, take to the skies and happily disappear back to the wild. So thanks to your help (and that help might simply have been to watch from a distance and not intervene) a bumblebee queen has survived. And that’s important.
Think about it.
I’ve not come across this in any of the scientific literature and not from any of the great bee advice from other bee advocates. Rather it struck me last spring while helping a struggling queen:
Every queen that survives at this time of year, that might have perished were it not for a helping caring hand, gets to establish a colony that would not otherwise exist. If that colony gets to produce even just 10 new queens for next year that’s 10 new colonies for next year. The year after that’s potentially 100 colonies. The year after 1000. By year five that one kind act could theoretically be responsible for 10,000 bumblebee queens and 10,000 nests.
Now that’s the power of individual action.
I like to call it 10 to the power of bee.
Sure there are other factors – big factors – we need to make sure they have habitat and suitable, bountiful forage. We need to stop exposing them to poisonous chemicals. Climate is now in the mix.
But knowledge combined with caring and 10 to the power of bee is a start.
A start we can all make. This spring.
Long live the Queen.
Paul Handrick, known as The Bee Guy runs The Bee Sanctuary in County Wicklow.
Save the bees with us by becoming an Official Friend of the Bees via the website - www.thebeesanctuaryofireland.com.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say