Interactions between Bumblebees & Cavity-nesting Birds
Suburban areas are truly novel ecosystems. We develop the land, pour concrete, cut down trees, and plant our own. Does our own landscape encourage animals to interact in new and interesting ways?
One of our unexpected findings in the chickadee study was that some of our nests each year are taken over by bumblebee queens. Bumblebees are primarily ground nesters, but queens will occasionally colonize natural cavities. Chickadee nests are made up of mostly soft moss which appears to be a great nesting substrate for bees too! The queen finds her way into the nest box and will made a loud alarm buzzing noise when the nest is disturbed. Presumably, this noise scares the female chickadee causing her to abandon whole clutches of eggs. Once inside, the female bee makes a 'honeypot' of wax and begins her brood.
One of our unexpected findings in the chickadee study was that some of our nests each year are taken over by bumblebee queens. Bumblebees are primarily ground nesters, but queens will occasionally colonize natural cavities. Chickadee nests are made up of mostly soft moss which appears to be a great nesting substrate for bees too! The queen finds her way into the nest box and will made a loud alarm buzzing noise when the nest is disturbed. Presumably, this noise scares the female chickadee causing her to abandon whole clutches of eggs. Once inside, the female bee makes a 'honeypot' of wax and begins her brood.
In natural settings, these interactions probably happen infrequently. In our suburban study, more than 10% of our nests each year are taken over by bumblebees! Because chickadees only have one nest per year, and rarely re-nest or double-brood, this is bad news for my chickadee pairs. It's possible that the lack of suitable nesting cavities, coupled with abundant ornamental floral resources, encourages increased competition between birds and some insects. We've only observed this phenomenon in chickadees nests; no bumblebees have been found (yet) in tree swallow, bluebird, house wren, house sparrow nests (however they do occasionally use mouse nests as well). This suggests that moss might be an ideal substrate for bumblebees and possibly could be used to attract them to colonize bumblebee suitable nest boxes.
This this interesting interaction has come to light, I've found several blog postings from homeowner documenting this interaction in their own backyards. I'm hoping to gather more data on this phenomenon. Have you had a bumblebee take over a bird nest? Please fill out the form by clicking the link below!
Have you found bumblebees in your nest boxes or bird nests? Please fill out the form below!
Bumblebees in Nest Boxes form
This this interesting interaction has come to light, I've found several blog postings from homeowner documenting this interaction in their own backyards. I'm hoping to gather more data on this phenomenon. Have you had a bumblebee take over a bird nest? Please fill out the form by clicking the link below!
Have you found bumblebees in your nest boxes or bird nests? Please fill out the form below!
Bumblebees in Nest Boxes form
Click to set custom HTML