I just saved ab Bumblebee... need some help now

Hi,

the following may be pretty unspectacular, no shiny UFOs and fancy NWO around here guys, just a little spleen of mine: Respect all Species. So, for the lack of a better place, I'm posting this here in "The Gray Area":

On my way home, I saw ab bumblebee crawling on the side-walk. It (her?) wasn't able to fly, so I picked it up onto my thumb and spent it a drive home. Well home is relative, it's in my home now. I got an infrared light and some nice little package where I put it into.

It's still unable to fly atm, after a 10min ride home on my (36° C) hand, and about 10 min.under the infra red warming light.

What am I supposed to do now?

Appearantly a bogus quote, but:

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."

- Albert Einstein

It's about 5-10° Celsius outside now, and very rainy, I don't know what to do, and what do you do in such situations: Ask ATS

SiONiX


EDIT: Wow, that was fast. Thread published, 5 sec. afterwards "Bye Gray Area", "Hello Fragile Earth!"

[edit on 9.3.2009 by SiONiX]

I think it's the temp that is the factor there, they get very lazy if the temp drops out of their comfort zone.

Personally I think you may of been better off moving the little critter off the ground but leaving it in the area. Or you could make a tiny lead out of fishing wire and take him for a daily fly

This may seem crazy, but...

a couple of friends of mine, in the past, used to catch bumblebees. In mugs, glasses, whatever - then put them in the freezer.

When frozen, they'd tie a bit of string around the bee. Take it back into sunlight, and voila!

Bee on a string!

Good to know that I'm not the only one who rescues bees LoL
Try a little sugar with small amount of water ( just a small amount ... you don't want to drown the poor thing ... the bee will take what it needs for energy or whatever. May take a while to gather enough energy to fly but when it's ready, it will.

[edit on 9-3-2009 by RoadWitch]

Originally posted by selfisolated
When frozen, they'd tie a bit of string around the bee. Take it back into sunlight, and voila!

Bee on a string!

Bee on a string... With a sting(er)

Didn't the bees ever say 'hang on, I've had enough of this game' and then sting them in the eye? I know if I was a bee that's how I'd like to be seen going down in the folklore of the generations of bee folk that followed my untimely demise.

reply to post by SiONiX


This bee seems to me like it just woke up from hibernating all winter. I think your best bet is to wake the little guy up.

Try to warm it up a little then cool it down slightly back and fourth a couple times. I would also say to get a drop of honey on a cotton swab and dab a little on the bees mouth. Honey is bee food. It will give it the energy it needs to go and find a home outside.

If the bee is hurt or it is just too old however, all you can do is give the bee a gracefull passing. I would give it warmth and feed it honey until it passes on.

Kinda warming that I'm not the only one whose done this! I had one in my bedroom window (my room is like a freezer) and it was barely moving etc.

I had my windows open obviously but all I did was breathe on it (from a distance - you don't want it flying in your mouth) and it absolutely bolted off. Defo the warmth!

Oh how nice, Im also one that will take in any little thing that comes my way lol,

I have also taken in a bumble bee, It might just be that it has had to much pollon and needs a little rest before flying of again, Put it somewhere safe and hopefully it will fly away, might be good to place it near an open window.

Well done you though for taking the time to care

Bumble Bees only live 10-20 days in their adult stage, so while admirable your "quest to save the Bumble" will likely end in failure.


Sailor

One other thing, if you took it home and released it there it will probably not be able to find its nest. Now thats not very nice is it?




Sailor

Thanks for the replies. I have no idea why this insect was out there on this rainy, cold weather.

I'll try the sugar-water technique to bring the little guy back on its flies, and release it on the place I found it so it's in its familiar environment first thing in the morning (it's 22:01 here in Germany now, and I'm not gonna let it out now because it probably won't be able to take the few sec/min. fly back "home" into its "nest?" in its current condition and the weather conditions outside).

I know it's a "pretty unspectacluar short-living" little being, but if the same happens to you, you'd probably be happy someone stepping by won't just let you lie around on your back.

During cold days you may find what appears to be an injured queen, that is a bee that is not dead but doesn't fly away. She has probably got too cold and does not have enough energy to build up heat. If you take the bee indoors and provide the sugar and water mixture the bee will soon recover and be on her way, though it is best to keep her inside if it is snowing or raining outside.

Source: How to help bumblebee caught out by cold weather

More infos on why this is happening can be found here, if someone finds this thread at a later point in time: Have you Seen a Winter Bumblebee?



[edit on 9.3.2009 by SiONiX]

Originally posted by SiONiX
I know it's a "pretty unspectacluar short-living" little being, but if the same happens to you, you'd probably be happy someone stepping by won't just let you lie around on your back.

I don't think at all is "unspectacular" to try to save and preserve life. You made my day,really. You are what most of the others around us are not...it's called a human being with superior intellect and compasion.

Don't think for a minute that it was an exercise in futility.The simple reason of thinking about that little life makes you better than most ( in my opinion)....and if the little guy won't make it, at least you tried your best.

I do the same with everything i find ( animals or insects), and i had no idea that other people are even noticing them,never mind trying to help.

reply to post by Bursuc


Therefore I wrote it in quotation marks, because most think that way.
But hey, it's a queen, and if it gets through the night it might have a good chance to develop a clony (Life-Cycle of Bumblebees/Queens. If this isn't worth a few minutes of my spare-time, I don't know what would be. Especially in these times where all bee-like insects are having a pretty hard time to survive....

As written in my introducing post, it was nothing big, just "lived by my codex", in which "Respect all beings/species" is pretty high up in the list. But thx for the flowers, nice you caught that.

UPDATEZzZz: The sugar-water seemed to have helped, nice to see its "nectar proboscis" (dunno if this is the correct english translation) in action, fed it with a syringe. It was pretty exhausted, and I think that was exactly what it needed. It is much more active and stronger now, but still unable to fly. I had to take her into a closed box with some flowers and tiny cups of sugar-water, to keep it save from being accidently stomped upon if someone would cross the room and the queen would freely crawl around there....

I hope it gets through the night, and I can release it on a beautiful spring morning tomorrow (well, the weather forecast didn't exactly predict that, but I'll keep it optimistic.).

With google, I found out what I found is a queen. It is a common distraughted behaviour that some queens start to early in the season, so if you find one, take it home to a warm place, fed it some sugar-water (see links above) and with some luck it will

Guess what, I woke up at 8:00 in the morning and my little friend was already buzZzy to escape its motel (well, the flower-sugarwater-packed cartonage....).

I smiled, put it into my cappy, gave it some flying lessons and after this worked out fine I opened the window, gave it a little push, said "See you in another life, brotha" (not really ) and bzzz it flew away like some air force veteran.

I hope it gets to develop a colony. Thanks for your replies.

Mission accomplished.

So every day at work when i walk out to the mail box I see this Bee, and I just kind of duke it out with the kid and then I high Tail it back inside, because I saw My Girl back in the day. I havent seen its nest anywhere around, but you can find him there everyday like clock work. Believe me, they are alive and well around my parts.

let me tell you about the two centipedes i saw copulating when i took my smoke break,