Last year, destroying the old bathhouse, we had to fight with the wasps, and in the end we managed to get rid of them. In place of the old bathhouse, I decided to build a country house with a resting place for body and soul. He erected the walls, blocked the roof in winter, and insulated the ceiling in the spring. And unfortunately, the bumblebee queen made the wrong decision and settled in a layer of insulation...
I learned about this while carrying out work on pouring underfloor heating on the ground, with stainless corrugated pipes.
At that moment it got to the point of ridiculousness, I was looking for the source of the noise for a long time. I even thought that I was buzzing in the "cuckoo", like in that same cartoon. But it turns out it was (a) carloson "bumblebee family"
Having found the source of the noise, I decided to hit the insulation from the inside of the room, since the vapor barrier is good, reinforced with the Mark "D". The hum intensified greatly and the insects, leaving their shelter, rushed out to look for the intruder. But as a result, they calmed down and continued to quietly and monotonously buzz their wings, maintaining the optimal temperature regime in their nest.
The whole family had to be sent to a long "sleep". Their presence under the roof of my house threatened my family, there would be no opportunity to continue construction, because ventilation was required there. And also there was a damage to the layer of insulation, photo below.
At the end of the day, after the impact, the family was rendered harmless, and I went up to the attic to see the degree of deterioration of the insulation and to study the structure of the bumblebee nest. Looking ahead, I will say that it is very interesting, I never imagined that they are being built so interestingly.
To cover the ceiling, I used stone wool in rolls, in two layers of 50 and 150 mm. They settled in the lower layer. Having removed 150 mm of cotton wool, we can observe the nest.
The distance that they walked from the street to this "house" was about 1.5 meters. On the way, many bumblebees lost their crops, pollen. In the photo there are yellowish grains:
Then they reached their structure:
The photo is clearer:
To understand more clearly what the hive looks like, I took it out into the street. To my surprise, One bumblebee was alive. He turned out to be young, during the "euthanasia" he was most likely in his capsule, and over time he hatched.
The larvae, similar to the larvae of flies, also remained alive:
Having studied the hive itself, I came to the conclusion that these insects are very similar to their bee brothers. Unlike Wasps, they have a lot of honey in their cells, they cannot be called honeycombs. There is a supply of "wax", maybe I misnamed them, correct.
I put this nest in the refrigerator so far, I don't know what to do with it. Maybe someone needs it? For research. To a school with a deep study of biology or an institute? Let me know. I will try to send if it arrives)
This is how the Bumblebee Hive works, I was very interested. And you?
P / s as soon as I edit, the channel will have a 10 minute video about this, welcome to the channel: "Timofey Mikhailov"