It is my time dear formiculturians... No! Not my time to die! It's my time to shine and help bumblebees. That's right. Today when I just woke up, I woke up to the delightful feel of the warm sun radiating down in my room which is not super frequent during this time of year here. I looked outside my window thinking... "Ah. This would be a perfect day to go anting." Little did I know that I'd be doing more than anting. You see... after that thought I realized there was a Bumblebee outside. I thought nothing of it at first saying "Just a worker..." but as I looked closer it looked less and less like a worker. And I puzzled... and I puzzled some more until my puzzler was sore. And that's when it hit me. It's WAY too early for bumblebees to have workers. So still in my Pajamas I sprint out of my bed, head upstairs and grabbed a container and sprinted outside. "She's right there!" I said as I saw her flying through the fence that leads out of my backyard. So, as I was sprinting like mad down the stairs the queen hovered for a second and then went through the fence again but this time going BACK INSIDE my yard... "What are you playing at?" I asked once I saw that. Then once I was right where she was, I waited for her to land but she never landed... And she zipped right out of the backyard to never be seen again! "How do I have such bad luck!?" I asked since that was the first time ever, I had seen a queen. I hobbled back up the stairs, in great grief... But then I looked back down on my backyard, and I saw another bumblebee queen! Maybe she was the same or maybe she was different? We may never know. But I ran downstairs and tried one last time my trick of waiting for the queen to land... and she did. She landed down in the tiniest patch of my backyard that wasn't covered in grass and had tall grass around it and that was the moment I pounced like a dog that hasn't eaten in a few days. "Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, BUZZZ BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ." she went as I was trying to put the lid on the container. I finally managed to get the lid on and the pride that was radiating off of me was unbelievable. After having been sick to wake up with a sight like that made my day start off great. But very suddenly my pride went to fear. "I don't have any nesting materials for her. What am I going to do to keep her?" So, I quickly hopped onto my computer and searched up how to keep bumblebees and there was this very informative video from the university of Oregon that I will leave a link to. So now I know what I need for my wasp queen and right after I do my stuff for the day, I'll get everything I need. I hope this journal doesn't end here but goes all the way from right now till the day the queen has her children fly off and start their next colony the next year. Right in my area.
Oregon State University Bumblebee Rearing Video: (1711) A Guide to Bumble Bee Rearing - YouTube
Edited by NicholasP, May 4 2022 - 10:13 AM.
