Dragonfli Bumble Bee Beepol and 2017 Villa - unboxing and review

The Dragonfli Ltd Beepol and Villa

I wrote a review of the first Dragonfli Beepol and Villa back in 2011, and I really wanted to share my thoughts of the new 2017 Beepol Hive and Villa with you.

This will be our fourth Dragonfli Beepol. This year the Villa (the pretty wooden hive that the Beepol goes in) and the Beepol itself have been thoroughly redesigned, taking on feedback from customer experience, especially with regards to pest control and colony strength.

Bumble bees are at the mercy of many enemies, man being one, destruction of habitats, mono-culture farming practices, poor weather, pesticides,Varroa mite and Wax Moth. A large, strong, healthy colony is better at surviving these perils than a weak, small one.

The delightful thing about being able to keep and observe Bumble Bees is gaining an insight into their life, beginning right from the moment they arrive.

Unboxing the Dragonfli Beepol and Villa

Our Dragonfli delivery arrives!

MrPB lifts the Dragonfli Villa out of it's packaging.

The Bumble bee Beepol is revealed

Inside the box marked LIVE BEES is a white cardboard box (above), containing the plastic Beepol hive, with the colony already thriving inside. When you lift the hive out, the bees will be active and buzzing noisily. They are responding to the light and movement.

The colony are contained in the Beepol Hive

Under the Hive is the new liquid feed chamber. Leaving the chamber in the white cardboard box, the cap is removed from the sponge (cylindrical creamy coloured wet thing, top centre of the chamber - see photo below) and the Beepol is clipped on top of it with the sponge poking up through the hole into the Beepol.

Previous Beepols have not come with a feeder, but should the weather be inclement after release, making it difficult for the bees to forage, this liquid feed will serve as a backup supply to keep the colony strong.

The new Dragonfli Beepol liquid feed chamber

The Beepol is then placed inside the wooden Villa. The white cardboard box should touch the back wall of the Villa, but there will be gaps on each side, and a large one at the front. The bees will be able to negotiate this gap when they leave the Beepol entrance (temporarily sealed with a yellow sliding door), to exit the villa by the wide open slot machined in the wooden Villa.

The Beepol is placed inside the Villa

Sneaky peek at the Bumble bee colony, looking fit and well with a good quantity of nest built

We sited the Hive under a Fatsia japonica, with the entrance facing east. The garden is filled with excellent pollen and nectar sources, though this doesn't seem to matter, as the bees always fly off eastwards towards the North Downs.

The Dragonfli Villa located in a raised flower bed

Within moments of opening the sliding yellow door we saw the first Bumble bee leave the hive. NB, the Beepol has been pulled forward in the Villa to allow MrPB to open the sliding door and release the bees. It was pushed back into position after this photo was taken.

The first bee!

We only had to wait 20 minutes for the first bee to return to the hive, with its pollen sacks bulging. That's the fastest yet!

We're thoroughly enjoying watching the comings and goings of our new furry friends.

Dragonfli Beepol Maintenance

Dragonfli treat every Beepol and Villa against Wax Moth before it leaves them, and while it is advisable to leave the colony as undisturbed as possible once it arrives, you will need to respray the whole set up with Wax Moth repellent every 3-4 weeks from date of arrival to the end of the colony's life (end of July-ish). Failure to do this could result in the Wax Moth larvae eating all the Bumble bee larvae, and leading to the total devastation of the colony. Signs to look for are cobweb like threads inside the Villa and Hive, and the appearance of greyish brown larvae. These larvae are capable of burrowing into the wood of the Hive, you may see these tunnels when you clear out the Villa at the end of the season.

Dragonfli Beepol and Villa Review

The online ordering process with Dragonfli is very simple, and if you have any queries, the customer service is excellent.

Delivery is by courier, on a specified day. Remember these are live creatures, so you need to be on hand to take delivery.

The packaging is really sturdy and beautifully sized for the contents. there is no excess space, or need for padding, and the bees have good ventilation round them.

The Beepol hive is a lovely bit of design engineering, balancing ventilation and protection needs very carefully.

The Villa is robust pine wood with filtered vents at the back, a wide entrance with landing platform, and this year a felted roof. Now I know from chicken-keeping experience that the space between roofing felt and the roof itself can provide a perfect place for pests to set up home. We will need to see if this is the case with Bumble bees.

Not only would I highly recommend Dragonfli as a company, which we have personally used since 2011, I would also highly recommend giving a Bumble bee colony a home in your garden or on your roof terrace. The hive takes up only a small space, and the colony size is a fraction of a honey bee colony, so you won't ever be surrounded by a swarm, so long as you respect them and don't bang the hive. They are fascinating, educational, docile and absolutely vital for pollination - and, lets face it, for the continuation of life as we know it on Earth.

The Importance of Beeing a Beekeeper - part 1

Building the Top Bar Hive kit

For years now, Mr PB has been reading about and talking about beekeeping.

You may remember that we bought a Beepol Bumble Bee lodge from Dragonfli, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of having a Bumble Bee colony in the garden. They were fascinating!

We were devastated when the lodge became infested with Wax Moth larvae and we lost all the bees. It would appear that other people had experienced the same issues though, because the following year when we ordered another Beepol, Dragonfli had added some Wax Moth deterrents to their range.

We tried, we really did. We installed the special anti-Wax Moth door, but again, the colony were overcome by the horrid larvae and the crazy silky webs they create. Dragonfli have since introduced a Wax Moth Concentrated Repellent, which you dilute and spray all over the hive every 2-3 weeks for full protection. We haven't tried it, so can't comment on it's effectiveness.

This year, Mr PB decided he was going to put all his research into practice, and build himself a Top Bar Hive, a more natural method of keeping honeybees which is championed here in the UK by Phil Chandler, The Barefoot Beekeeper. I made contact with Phil via Twitter, and asked him if he felt there were any advantages to a Warre (pron: Wah rey) hive over a Horizontal Top Bar Hive. Phil was incredibly helpful, and we decided that we would stick with the horizontal type.



Hive on it's back, showing long bee entrance

Two ends on

After investigating the options and cost implications of either building from scratch, or building from a kit, Mr PB bought a cedar self assembly kit from Bees n Blossom on Ebay. It looked really good, but the instructions were absolutely impossible to follow, and building was a lengthy, sweary process!!



Mesh grille fitted to the bottom

             

Part of the ventilation underneath

These are some photos of the early stages, it took so long that I kind of lost interest (oops) and didn't bother to document any more than this.

Time was against us though, as this was the end of April (2015), and our bees were going to be ready for collection at the beginning of May!!

Eventually the darn thing was finished, and sited next to the greenhouse, it looked super!





Hive with legs on, showing the viewing panel on the front



Now on to Part 2...

Beepol Bumble Bee hive to be featured on TV

Earlier this week, I sent an email to the folks at Dragonfli (makers of the Beepol Garden Hive for Bumble Bees Beepol Garden Hive), telling them about my last blog post, and also about our discussions on the Vine regarding their product.

I got a very nice reply from Ian Bedford (Technical Director of Dragonfli), thanking me for letting them know that our Beepol arrived safely, and that we are talking positively about the Beepol here on my blog and on the Vine.

He also let me know that the Beepol will be featured on this Sunday's Horticultural Channel (Sky 166) The Horticultural Channel, which is really exciting. Our bees seem really happy in our garden, and I hope lots more people will take on a colony. I will certainly be spreading the word about the Beepol at every opportunity.

I love my Bumble Bees!!!

Bumble Bees in our garden

On Friday we took delivery of a very exciting parcel. It had been left with our kind neighbours the night before, and they were bemused and slightly scared by the warning labels plastered all over the outside of the box...

WARNING

LIVE BUMBLE BEES INSIDE BOX

HANDLE WITH CARE

I, on the other hand, was completely over-the-moon that this box had arrived safely, and I knew MrPB would be just as excited when he saw it. So what had we been buying?

MrPB opens the box of bees

The Villa is revealed

It's a Beepol hive and Lodge!! Beepol Garden Hive

...and inside...

The Beepol is a nest of happy healthy bumble bees ready to get to work in the garden

...our very own colony of Buff Tailed Bumble Bees (Bombus terrestris audax).

We read the instruction, and chose our site carefully and after placing the hive, we left it alone until dusk. We then followed the next set of instructions to prepare the hive for releasing the bees, and then waited until early the following morning before actually letting them go.

Saturday morning we went into the garden, full of anticipation. I stood a good distance away from the hive, and MrPB quietly went over and picked up the string that was attached to a foam bung in the top of the hive. He pulled the string, the bung came out with one bee attacking it, and then.........nothing.

We waited...

...and waited...

...and eventually we were rewarded with scenes like this...

The Bumble bees begin to emerge from the Villa

(One Bumble on the roof and one hovering outide the right hand entrance.)

Bumble bee reversing out of the Villa on its first foraging mission

Awesome! We sat watching them for ages. The most fascinating thing is the way they leave the hive.

Firstly, they come to the entrance (just like the photo above), then they turn around and reverse out of the hole. They take off, and inspect the entrance and the landing ledge. Then they inspect the hive itself and the things next to it. Then they start to fly in ever increasing circles, taking in landmarks and getting higher and higher, until....vroooom! they shoot off into the distance to go foraging! It's like they are memorising their way home.

We left them alone, and then at about 11.30 we went and had another sneaky peek, and were treated to scenes of our little Bumbles coming home, with fully laiden pollen sacs, after just four hour of foraging. Nature is amazing!!