Subt's are hatching!!

Dear all
 
We have some good news. Three of our queens have hatched out males and workers. Here's a picture of queen number 30, she's on the right with a newly hatched male next to her. Seven other colonies have good larval development. It's a bit of a waiting game to see if/how many queens are produced, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed. So far we are very please with the breeding results, over half our queens have produced eggs, and many of these have gone on to lay larvea. Some are still catching up.
 
Keep your fingers crossed
 
Till next time Nikki

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Queen number 30!!

Dear all

Subt queen number 30 is our best queen so far with over 12 larvae developing. We have another 5 or so catching her up but fingers crossed she will produce some lovely workers! All remaining queens have now laid eggs, so all are coming along but they are moving slowly.

Keep posted for more subt updates and keep your fingers crossed for the queens

Till next time Nikki....
--
The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland,
number SC 011159.

Subt queen with hortorum workers

Here's one of the subt queens. She has hortorum workers with her (some colonies have males) and she has started to lay some eggs! Watch this space for some pics of subt larvae!!

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News from New Zealand

Dear all
 
An update on how the queens are doing. Well we have now unfortunately lost half of the queens collected which we did expect would happen. But we do have some good news, most of the remaining queens have now laid eggs, some eggs have died and have been kicked out of the nest but they seem to keep laying to replace the dead ones. In fact Rosemary has even seen 3 queens lay eggs! Some of the nests have larvae which is a good sign and we hope the other's will go the same way. Its taking a bit longer than expected for the eggs to turn into larvae. So we have put some queens into red clover poly tunnels to see if this would move them on, but the weather hasn't been to good here in Christchurch so they haven't developed that fast.
 
So our next plan is to collect some B. ruderatus colonies from the traps we sent out a couple of months ago. Unfortunately we didn't get any subt in them but we did get a lot of ruderatus. Therefore we can collect these traps and bring them up to Christchurch. From there we can harvest some of the brood and workers to help the subt queens.
 
So it's a hard task but its the first year and we are pleased with how many have survived to date, and with the egg laying, let's just hope some of them go all the way to laying some males and queens
 
All the best Nikki

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First subt worker

Dear all



So recent news, we saw our first subt worker a couple of days ago at Lake Tekapo! Here's a pic of her. We also found a queen on the same day, we collected her because we have actually lost a couple in the rearing process, but there are promising signs from a few queens. So fingers crossed. We are supplementing the queens with other bumblebee brood and workers to encourage them to lay. Rosemary is doing the best she can but its going to be tough so we must keep our fingers crossed. 
 


We have decided to put out a few queens into outside foraging cages filled with red clover. This will mean they can forage for fresh pollen and nectar when they want it everyday. So we are trying a few methods to see how the bees get on and trying a few things to encourage them.



Keep in touch for the bees progress!!!



Till next time..............

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TV3 news

Dear all

We were shown here today on national TV3 news, so check out this link to watch us in action!!

http://www.3news.co.nz/NZ-bumblebees-to-repopulate-motherland/tabid/309/articleID/135567/Default.aspx

We had news from Rosemary that about 6 of our bees have now died, but we also have good news because some of our bees have started to lay wax down. We have also managed to collect a few more queens to re stock the ones that have died.

Till next time.....................
--
The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland,
number SC 011159.

Team bee

Dear all

Well all the bees are caught and currently being reared at Christchurch by Rosemary Read. She's doing a brilliant job and we are very lucky that we have someone who can breed long tongue bees here in NZ. Its early days but the queens seem to be doing well and some even look a bit broody- which is a good sign. One has sadly died but I do have a secret stock of 5 queens which I am keeping for the film crew who are due to arrive today! Breeding these bees is going to be very hard- so do keep your fingers crossed for them!

So here's some pics of our brill team bee. Here's Andy and Maggie Tebbs and Rob Jones in one of our red clover fields down in Clyde. We're in Twizel today and I had a quick peak at two of the sites and found a newly emerged subt queen- they are still about!!! Heard the weather is freezing over there with snow playing havic! Well I hate to say it but its pretty hot over here!

All the best, till next time......................