Breeding Bumblebees By Deborah & Rodney Ralph

 

On their arrival home they were placed into a tank (temporary) of their own with an addition of 1 teaspoonful of salt per 4 litres of water. A short time later we acquired a 20" tank at an irresistible price at Jim Atkinsons' Auction, so we set this up for the Bumblebees. We placed gravel, an assortment of plants, 2 empty Mystery snail shells, 1 ceramic ornament and 1 clay pot in the tank. The shells, pot and ornament were covered with Java moss, cascading down and around giving privacy without obstruction to the entrances of the items placed in. The water mixture was the same 1 teaspoonful of salt per 4 litres. The pH was about 7.6, the temperature 25C and the only filtration and aeration was supplied by a corner box filter. There was duckweed and some watersprite floating on the surface.

 

We had 8 Bumblebees in the tank and only one of them appeared to us to be a definite male, so he had his own harem. The females seemed to have their own little spots in the tank, but the male went anywhere he wanted. They were fed exclusively on live foods, such as Daphnia magna (Daphnia), Cyclops, Mosquito Larvae, Tubifex rivulorum (Tubificid worms) and the occasional live Artemia salina (Brine Shrimp). The tank was the easiest to maintain out of all our tanks and as it was the only one by itself, we sometimes forgot to do its water change.

 

One weekend while we were doing water changes we realised that the bumblebee tank had somehow missed out for a month, so we promptly rectified this by giving it the usual 20% water change. It had entered our minds of course to one day try and breed these eye catching little fish but it was going to be sooner than we had thought.

 

The next evening one of us just happend to be sitting in the right place at the right time looking into the right tank. The only male Bumblebee kept disappearing into one of the empty Mystery snail shells. He would then turn around inside and with his head sticking slightly out would then begin to flap his pectoral fins. This looked very interesting to us, so we looked even closer. We could not see inside the shell as we had done too good a job at giving them privacy but could see a few things on the edge of the shell that looked like eggs. We watched him for quite some time and he never went far from the shell, frequently he went inside, turned around, and whilst stationary in an upright position, would fan.

 

We quickly re-read all the articles we could find on Bumblebees and discovered that it we left them there they would probably be eaten when free swimming. Also, we couldn't leave it too long if we were going to do something about it as they would hatch in a couple of days.

 

We figured the eggs to be 1 day old (as we found out a while later we were wrong). We decided to artificially hatch them in a separate tank.

 

Day 2 - The next afternoon we could wait no longer to see what was actually in the shell. We had prepared a separate 8x14 inch tank with water that was mainly from the breeding tank and placed clean, snail free, Java moss on the bottom and it had a temperature of 25C.

 

Next we moved the shell in water into the tank sitting it on a plastic vial with sinkers and an airstone in. We got a fine stream of bubbles going in front of the shell and we then set about having a good look at all the eggs we had happily seen in there on their trip down. Another empty snail shell was placed where we stole this one from and the male made a bee-line for it, went in and continued to fan non-existent eggs until the next day when he must have realised there was something funny going on.

 

Now back to the eggs. We moved them just at the right time as they were all eyed up, approximately 85 of them on the inside of the shell, all stuck in their own place individually. The eggs were now approximately two days old, we thought. Later that same night we looked in at our surprise catch and notice that several had hatched and were moving around in the water with their full egg sacs, this made our night.

 

Day 3 - The next morning, we were surprised even more, as about 80% of the eggs had hatched, some swimming around, others just laying around and the rest still in the shell not yet hatched. A small amount of Euglena was added to the tank, as an article we had read said "they need to have food within 36 hours of hatching".

 

Day 4 - Was similar to day 3 only now there were a few swimming around without egg sacs. There were still quite a few lying around, still some moving, others not, we had already lost some. There were still some in the shell not yet hatched. A number seemed to have hatched and died, we couldn't work out what we had done wrong. While watching them swimming jerkily around it was noticed that the heater was on, as there was a heat haze rising up. Helplessly we watched 2 fry in a moment of rest land on the heater or near it and in a second they were dead, this seemed to be the reason for so many dead fry. As soon as this happened the heater was moved off the side of the tank to the back with the heating element end in the back corner that was the darkest. Hopefully now as most things are attracted towards the light none of our fry would be fried. We had never seen this happen before nor had we even thought of it happening, but hope it will help others to prevent anything like this.

 

Day 5 - There seemed to be about only 20 little Bumblebees left, they were being fed Euglena. The fry did have particularly small mouths but they should have been able to handle Euglena. We could not understand why we had lost so many. A couple of snails were added to keep the tank clean.

 

Day 6 - Nothing new in our Bumblebee fry tank but where the adults were we noticed the male acting strangely again. This time in and out of the clay pot. We placed a mirror and torch behind at an angle so we could see in and were vary pleased to see him guarding and fanning another clutch of eggs. A second chance for us.

 

We moved the clay pot with eggs to a nine inch tank immersed in another tank so there was no exposed heater. The temerature here was 26C and the water was all out of the tank the eggs came from as a 9" tank doesn't hold much water. We placed an airstone down the centre of the pot that was placed on its end, with wide opening up. A fine mist of bubbles would fan the eggs. Looking in over the top with a torch we could see the eggs for a daily check at least (more like four to five times a day). We waited and waited for them to eye up, it took about four days until we could see them eyeing up, so the first lot we had were laid before we thought and the books we had read did not seem to match what was happening for us. It took six days for the eggs to start hatching and a further three days for all to hatch. It only took about 24 hours after they had hatched for their egg sacs to be absorbed. As soon as they hatched they were trying to swim around with jerky movements.

 

We placed the other previous spawn of Bumblebees in with these- as they had not grown much and their numbers had dwindled to only 12. They seemed to be lazy eaters and although there was plenty of food tor them they were fussy. We fed them Euglean, green water, vinegar eels, liquifry and a small amount of Brine shrimp which the first batch could now handle. We added liquifry this time as the fry are very small. They were clear little slivers with little black eyes and a small black mark in their tummies. This time we did not lose anywhere as many fry, probably because there was no heater to fry the fry.

 

We had about 60 swimming around slowly but happily. A lot of their time was spent pretty much motionless then all of a sudden they would dart forward then stop again. They are very slow growing and didn't seem to eat much no matter how much food we gave them. Once they were able to handle Brine shrimp then they would fill themselves up on this and it was easy to pick the ones who did as they had full red-brown tummies. Don't think we found their perfect first food for them, maybe they need something different as they do come from slightly brackish waters. They did seem to go better in the warmer water of 27C and once able to handle Brine Shrimp which was at about one and a half weeks old then they ate their fill each day. When the Bumblebees were large enough fine cyclops and daphnia were added to their diet. By the way the male is happily guarding another clutch of eggs in a different place this time, think we will leave him to this lot as we have that usual problem of not enough tanks and no room for anymore.