20 July 1993 / 1300
The question of nest sites interests me. On our Santa Cruz Island
project, we have installed 130 swarm hives (courtesy of Justin Schmidt) and
also routinely check cavities in which colonies formerly lived.
Swarms fairly regularly move into swarm hives, but it appears that
a cavity formerly used by a colony has an edge over swarm hives. That is
puzzling, because some of these cavities hardly look suitable. Furthermore,
Once a colony has died, honey is robbed out be wasps and other bees, wax
moths move in and destroy the comb, and often the cavity is nearly filled
with wax moth coccoons. In short, the place is a mess, and one can sometimes
smell such a cavity from some distance downwind.
I suspect that the odor leads scout bees to check out the cavity.
Perhaps the "varnishing" of the interior walls (with propolis) is an
important factor in cavity choice.
Adrian M. Wenner Prof. of Natural History, Emeritus
Dept. of Biol. Sciences [log in to unmask]
Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara Phone: (805) 893-2838
Santa Barbara, CA 93106 FAX: (805) 893-8062
>
> Hi,
> Sounds like an interesting project. As far as I know, most Bombus
> queens [the species in this region anyway] make their nest selections
> in the spring after emerging from their overwintering burrows in which
> they remained in diapause (sp?) after mating in the fall. I've found
> several areas where many tens or up to a couple of hundred queens were
> emerging from a patch of ground only 3 to 4 meters in diameter. I think
> it would also be intresting to find out how/why these locations are
> selected in the fall after the queens have been mated.
> I have some sources which I could forward if you are interested.
> Unfortunately they are at home but it would be no trouble to dig them
> up. I will post them along within the next few days.
>
> Cheers
> Brooke M. Oland
> Plant Industry Branch,
> Harlow Institute,
> N.S.D.A.M.,Truro,N.S.
>
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