6 queens

Dear all
 
We have six queens now. They have hatched from two colonies queen 48 and queen 45. We have also had many males hatch. So this week over in New Zealand they will be mating the queens and putting them into hibernation. Then they will be flown back to the UK at the end of May ready for release in June. So its been tricky rearing the bees and a very slow process. However, this has taught us a lot about subt and its requirements and will help us for our continuing collection and rearing of the queens. It is hard to say whether any more queens will be produced. The original queens are getting old and its getting late in the season but Rosemary will keep a watchful eye.
 
Meanwhile back in the UK I am busy planning the spring and summer events. I shall post the event listing very soon. This last week I meet with a couple of farmers to discuss coverting some of their land into good bumblebee habitat. Over the next few weeks I will be doing some school visits where I will be teaching primary school children about bumblebee conservation!
 
Keep visiting for how our breeding queens get on.......
 
 

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We three queens!!

Dear all
 
We have now received reports that we have three queens hatched, all from queen 61. Unfortunately this queen died but because she had already laid queen larvae and pupae they have been cared for by the workers of that colony. We hope that still more will come through from this nest. Many of the subt colonies are now outside foraging on red clover, this is hoped will give the colonies a further push for development. Fresh, good quality pollen is needed by this bee species and by providing this we hope we are giving them the best chance of developing new healthy queens.
 
I will also be giving a talk down at RSPB Dungeness on Sunday the 13th March from 3-4pm, do come along if you can make it.
 
Till next time....

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First subt queen to hatch

Dear all

Here is the picture of our first subt queen to hatch. She came from queen 61! She's looking quite pale in these photo's as she has just emerged but will darken over the next few days. We are incredibility pleased to see her and know we are doing something right with subt's rearing. Unfortunately we have had a couple of set backs. Queen 61 died a few days ago, thankfully she has laid some queen eggs, her workers are now looking after the egg/larvae/pupae so we are confident some will hatch out. It's quite unusual for a queen to die once she has started a colony- subt are testing us at every opportunity but we have made significant progress and are hopeful for the future. We knew the bees would be hard to breed and we have 21 queens remaining (which is excellent) all in different stages of progress. Obviously I am hoping for enough queens for a release this summer.

Till next time................
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The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland,
number SC 011159.

Subt workers and males

Dear all

We are really pleased to announce we now have four subt colonies with workers, and some even have with males. A big thank you to Rosemary who has worked so hard on the rearing. Sam her daughter (who helped collect the queens) had taken these photos for us. As yet we don't know if any queens will be produced, we just have to wait and keep everything crossed for them. Certainly to date the rearing has proved much more successful than we ever would have thought. We have learned so much about subt from collecting them in the field through to rearing them. We hope we can continue this great work for the years to come....

Keep posted, till next time

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

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....

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!!