Pictured above, WPC’s Bumble Bee Breeding Lab. Photo: Parker Smale

You’ve seen the headlines “bees are declining!” and have seen the calls to “save the bees”. The bees that really need saving are our native bees, the bees that have co-evolved with our native plants over time and are integral in maintaining our local ecosystems. These are the bees that WPC is working to save, by breeding them in a specially designed lab.

In the fall of 2023, our bumbles went down for their winter nap. Our team placed them in tubes filled with sterilized soil, and in specific temperature and humidity conditions, then bedded the queens down to spend their winter in a 5-star hotel, aka the fridge in the bee lab. This environment mimics what they experience in the wild, as bumble queens (gynes) typically overwinter in the ground.

Many species of bumble have different emergence periods but our species of interest, the yellow-banded bumble bee, typically emerges in April/May in the wild – so we set about gently waking our bees at the same time.

To take them out of their overwintering sleep, we transfer the queens to their nest boxes, along with a pollen ball covered in wax and a tube full of nectar – which you can see here in the video. The pollen ball covered with wax is to help encourage the queen to lay her eggs, and start building her colony… even if that means laying her eggs directly on the waxed pollen ball!

Stay tuned to see our how our queens fare in starting the next generation of bumbles, and donate today to ensure our bumble team can keep up this amazing, one of a kind work!