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. On Wednesday the 26th, we examined the greenhouse and saw not bee emergence's inside the PVC tube.
Before we did that we decided to dissect some of the cocoons from the first set. Gene found two female (because they were relatively 'big') cocoons in his house that had 'fallen' from the tray. In addition, we took four of the unemerged cocoons from the greenhouse. We opened the two 'house' cocoons to find healthy female bees. The four greenhouse cocoons were all dead, three females and one male.
This result (4 dead in the greenhouse, 2 alive in the house at 'room temperatures') supports Dr. Steve Peterson's observation that the 90 deg F temperatures in the greenhouse may be too hot for the cocoons and actually 'kill' them.
Previously we had ordered another set of 200 BOB cocoons in the anticipation of placing these outside the greenhouse with similar provisions to establish an 'A versus B' experiment: contained within the greenhouse versus free outside the greenhouse. Next we will see if we can release a subset of these directly in the greenhouse to prevent the above situation.
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