Previously we set up the greenhouse (Site1a2g) as an enclosed space with supplemental/augmenting resources (pollen, sugar water, "mud"). Then we released the bees, actually placed the cocoons, on Wednesday morning, the 19th of February. On Thursday, we did our first check of the bees progress. On Friday the 21st we checked the status of the bees, cocoon, and our enclosed space. On Saturday the 22nd, it rained all day. There was little or no bee activity on the 23rd. On Monday the 24th, there was not much activity.
On Tuesday the 25th, one bee emerged from the cocoons and we found one be dead in the pollen dish.
Jim had a discussion with Dr Steve Peterson on our results to date. Some notes follow:
"Discussion with Steve Peterson by Jim on 25 February 2020, 0915 am:
-males also have the ‘nipple’ at the ‘top’ of the cocoon. The reason for mentioning this originally was that if you want to cut open a cocoon, it is best to start at the ‘nipple’ then you can see the bee head and pull it out.
-90s deg F may be too hot for incubating BOBs. Could be cooking them. Later we discussed whether we could put the PVC tube in a ‘shady’ part of the greenhouse, down low, near the ground. [I will test this theory out by placing a temperature logger in a shaded spot, near the ground.] Steve suggested we could incubate the bees ‘inside’ and then take them to the greenhouse, or wherever after they hatch. 90 deg plus temperature are all right for emerged bees.
-I mentioned our plan to do an A vs B study with the arriving bees, putting them immediately adjacent to the greenhouse. This situation would not suffer the 90 deg F plus temperature (if we put them in the shade).
-steve said that the bees do ‘dribble out’. It is a bell shaped curve with he males first. Our experience is not unusual.
-steve said that studies have been done and BOB’s are not attracted to (artificial) pollen.
-steve said to call if we had any more questions."
There are two interesting points:
1. 'studies have shown that BOBs are not attracted to artificial pollen sources'. We did find one be dead in the pollen dish, but that could be coincidental. In all the observations for this study we have never seen a bee in the pollen, but we have often seen the bees on flowers.
2. '90 deg F plus temperatures are too hot for the cocoons'. We attempted to find a cooler spot for the PVC tubes/cocoons by moving them to the 'shady' side of the greenhouse and covering them with a cardboard box.
We included a temperature data logger inside the box. Tomorrow we will read out the two temperature loggers and see how much cooler it is inside the box.
Another option would be to place the PVC tubes/coccons elsewhere and move the emerged bees to the greenhouse.
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