First week of testing is underway and going swimmingly! Our enclosures are looking great, and the bumbles seem happy. All 12 bumble bee hives look healthy and are actively visiting flowers in the enclosure and out in the field. To allow the bumbles to get into the enclosures, we attached clear tubes from the hive entrance to the enclosure. It's quite adorable to watch them scurry in and out of the hive. But getting to the point of this study... we are trying to see how the bu

Field site preparation is underway! We are setting up 12 screened enclosures to house 12 bumble bee hives. 6 of these enclosures will also have wool-carder bees added to them. We will then monitor the bumble bees over 10 weeks to see if there are any fitness consequences for the colonies living with wool-carder bees. I have three amazing Tufts undergrads working for me - Isabel, Kevin and Sean. They have been doing back breaking work to get everything ready for the bumble bee