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.

5 Tips for Gardening in Autumn

Here are my top 5 tips for gardening in the Autumn.

Tree Fern Dicksonia Antarctica
Photo taken by Pumpkin Becki at Chelsea Physic Gardens, London

1 Move frost tender plants

Living in the South East of England, I don't worry about lifting Dahlia tubers once the first frost has blackened them in the Autumn, I just prune off the dead top and add a good 8-10cm mulch over the soil. I do take the time to wrap tree ferns up in fleece.

Further up country you're going to want to make space in a frost-free place to keep half hardy and tender perennials, including Banana Ensete, Cannas and Fuchsia.

I would also add Banana Musa to that list, as I've never been able to keep one in the garden over-winter, even really wrapped up well. It's so disappointing to find a dead plant when you peel back the fleece in Spring.

2 Clean paths and greenhouses

Algae growth goes into overdrive in October/November while it's still mild, and mornings are misty. Paths can become treacherous to walk on, so take some time now to scrub or jet-wash paths, decks and steps.

3 Aerate Lawns

Over the summer months our lawns take a real battering. We mow them to within an inch of their lives, they get parched and then drowned, we walk on them, pets do their business on them, and in my case the guinea pigs and chickens spend large chunks of time there too. I have two patches that get particularly compacted and in the winter water sits on the surface for hours after a good downpour. Early in the Autumn the ground is usually too dry to be able to improve drainage or relieve compaction, so once there has been a bit of rain and it's soaked in it's worth going over the lawn with a large garden fork at 10-15cm intervals, inserting it down through the turf into the soil (right up to the point where the tines meet the fork's shoulder if you can) and give it a good firm wiggle back and forth to expand the holes as much as possible without actually lifting the turf. Then you can dress the holes with a free-draining mixture of topsoil and sharp sand (aka top dressing), sweeping any excess in with a beesom broom afterwards.

The grass will also appreciate having fallen leaves raked off regularly with a springtine rake, and this will also scarify (scratch) the dead grass and moss out, making the lawn healthier and less springy.

Ladybirds over-wintering in sweetcorn plants
Photo by Pumpkin Becki

4 Don't be too tidy

Wildlife needs somewhere to live over the winter and spring, so make sure you have safe places for them in your garden. Log piles, bundles of canes and hedgerows are idea for insects and birds. Leave stalks and seedheads on plants over winter, they'll look pretty touched by frost and wildlife will make good use of them too.

For even more luxury why not add bug hotels, frog boxes and hedgehog hides in secluded corners. Dragonfli sell a huge range of habitats and identification guides for wildlife, as will your local garden centre and many other online retailers. Or if you're feeling practical, why not have ago at building your own

Hedgehog hibernating

5 Always check bonfires for hedgehogs!

I can't reiterate this one too much. This innocent looking pile of leaves behind my Hebe is in fact a hedgehog nest. He's set up home to hibernate over winter, and I discovered him while I was mulching the bed under the front window of my house.

I checked he was okay, and piled some extra leaves on top.

And Special Secret Tip Number 6

Take time to enjoy the changing season and all the delights it brings, the blazing colours, delicate frost patterns on windows, wild birds visiting garden feeders, pumpkins ripening, picking apples from the tree, and pouring over seed catalogues with a cheeky hot chocolate, deciding what to grow next year.

Pumpkin Becki xx

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!!