Today we did our first distribution of bees at a lake side residential lot in the Phoenix area (Site1a2). This site has numerous plants including a newly blooming plum tree:
We placed two habitats, each with a PVC pipe of roughly 70 BOB cocoons at Site1a2:
The inventory of (flowering) plants in the immediate lot includes Oranges trees, Lemon tree, Plum tree, Peach tree, 56 Rosebushes, Rosemary, Bottlebrush, Nantucket Honeysuckle, Crepe Myrtle. The surrounding lots include many of the same plants and more. Detailed plant count can be found on the Test Site Characteristics spreadsheet. The layout of the 0.27 acre lot is indicated below with the two Site1a2 habitats in red and the clay “mud” locations also in red.
The back yard is fronted by a man-made lake separating the houses. It will be interesting to see if the bees cross the water, although we have no specific method to monitor this.
Site1a2a was placed at a height of 48 inches and includes a tube of ~70 PA cocoons, an 8 by 12 bee habitat, 3 bamboo tubes, and a temperature and humidity monitor:
Gene describes the Site1a2a setup and characteristics.
Site1a2b was placed at a height of 52 inches and includes a tube of ~70 UT cocoons, an 8 by 6 bee habitat, and 2 bamboo tubes:
We observed one bee attempting to emerge after completing the setup. About two hours later we caught this bee emerging. The flash scared him/her back into the tube.
Next we will distribute bees to other residential Phoenix site, Site1a1.
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