Bee Swarm

A lot of you pointed out over the weekend that our bees were beginning to swarm. This is great news, and should be looked at as a good thing.

Very simply, within a hive of bees you have a queen (female), workers (female) and drones (males). As the weather warms up during the spring, the population of the hive increases too. There will only ever be one queen at most times. The workers are there to "do the work" by looking after her, feeding her and each other, tending to her brood, regulating the temperature and building and protecting the hive etc. The drones usually don't survive for the winter, having been pushed out at the end of the summer, and are produced later in the spring. They are there to mate with the queen.

Bees communicate with each other with "pheromones" passed between them all. The Queen pheromone is important in the whole organisation and efficiency of the hive. Sometimes when a hive is successful, and produces so many bees, the group best so populated that the queen pheromone doesn't get to all the workers and so they think there isn't a queen.

This encourages them to create a new one, by feeding the larvae "Royal Jelly". Once emerged the new queen will take her maiden flight and mate with several drones before returning to the hive. Then, surprisingly, it is the old queen that will leave the hive with her workers to find a new home and the new queen will take over the current hive.

So, the bee swarms you see are the queen surrounded by several workers looking for a place to go. The reason they rest so much is that the queen is not as strong a flyer as the workers, and so need the occasional break. While this happens the rest huddle in around her for protection while a few other workers go off to find a good spot to move on to.

Often they can move on within the same day, but sometimes it may take a couple of days. They may move far away, or just another short "hop" before finding somewhere more suitable.

I would imagine our swarm will be long gone by the weekend, but if not don't let them worry you. They are more concerned in protecting the queen and finding a new home... however, if they do feel threatened then of course they may become more active in protecting her. So best just to give them a bit of space and respect and enjoy seeing a swarm so close up.

Red Deer

I keep forgetting to say, but 3 weeks a go now our master stag Albus Dumbledeer cast his antlers. Every year in the spring the stags lose their antlers, and then start to re-grow a new set straight away. It only takes about 16 weeks to re-grow from nothing to a full crown, amazing when you think about it.

Anyway, this year I have decided to re-do a project I did with our old stag, Eric, a few years back... I will be taking a photograph of Albus every week during this phase just to show you how visible the difference in antler size is week on week. Once completed, likely the end of summer, I will put them in a post here and explain a bit more about the process.

As you can see from above, they don't always cast both antlers at the same time, and below at one week... there are already a couple of bumps on his head where they are beginning to reform.

I have included a couple of videos for you here too. The first one is of the deer feeding out in the paddock. A lot of people show interest in this when we go out to feed them, and a few have asked about it...

The second is a short clip I took only the other day of our wild jackdaw pulling the moulting hair off the back of our fallow deer buck. They have been doing this every morning for the last week or so with all our fallow deer, great fun to watch, I think I might have a photo somewhere too...

Here you go... Three going at it, with the puzzled look on the deers face. I love the jackdaw on the left, really putting his back in to it!

Common Dormice

Our native dormouse is the "Common Dormouse". But it very poorly named...

It is not a mouse! The dormouse is in its only little group of animals named dormice, from the french word "dormir" - meaning to sleep. We have two species of dormice in Britain... the Common Dormouse, sometimes called the Hazel Dormouse, and the Edible Dormouse which has been introduced.

It is not a door!...





... have you stopped laughing yet?, I'll give you a bit more time to recover...





And it is sadly not common anymore, mainly due to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation.

There is a group called the Common Dormouse Captive Breeding Group (CDCBG), who manage and organise the breeding and reintroduction of common dormice back in to the wild. The BWC is part of this group, and we hold both breeding dormice to aid with the re-introduction efforts which take place every year, and educational dormice to house those which can't be returned to the wild.

These educational dormice can still have a vital role in their conservation through educating the public, which very rarely see this small, extremely nocturnal mammal which is asleep for half the year!

 

Last week we hosted the annual meeting for members of the CDCBG, where all matters dormice were discussed, including the successes of previous releases, plans for future re-introductions and husbandry matters. All dormice holders/breeders where here, as well as veterinarians from ZSL and representation from PTES who co-ordinate and organise the release of these animals back to the wild.

While here, dormice from all holders were collected to be taken to Paignton Zoo and London Zoo for quarantine before there release later this year.

It is only with direct conservation work like this, and co-operation from all sides, that we can begin to help dormice in the wild.