I have wanted to create shelter for Bumble Bees for a couple years; (I think it was) last year, I purchased a bird house, and put it up, but no Bumble Bees decided to live there.
There are a lot of instructionals about how to build a Bumble Bee nest, but the same people who put these articles and videos up admit very little to no success.
It has, however, been found that Bumble Bees will occupy used (used by the bird previously) Titmouse bird houses readily. That was why I opted to buy a bird house.
Does anyone have knowledge about how to successfully get these Bumble Bees to build a nest on their property?
If you allow some brush piles/logs/firewood etc and rock piles and leave some areas unmowed and unkept they will nest and form new queens if there is enough for them to forage on. I did all of the above and my bumblebee poplulations have 100X over the past few years. I luckily have formed a very nice native aster habitat and goldenrods etc (by gathering trashbags full of roadside seed) which they gorge on all fall and take it back to the queen for her brood. So it takes awhile to get populations upā¦but you also need early and late forage as well to have them thriveā¦ at least thats how it works here. YMMV though.
This is a good read. To understand what they need to thrive etc.
Excellent. Yes, I am in the middle of starting flowers. Iāve understood, also, from others, that making sure pollinators have food sources for each season is key.
I have no ideaā¦ on if they will take sugar etcā¦ mine are feeding on āweedsā that flower right nowā¦ then they will take to the clover when it bloomsā¦ they go nuts over my vetches (hairy and crown).
I am super interested in pollinators and wasps and thingsā¦ i have talked before about my āgazing areasā that i enjoy walkabouts just seeing what new bees or wasp or pollinator or predator is thriving.
Mexican Sunflower is a good thing to growā¦its an annual but here the bumblebees really have a good time with itā¦ often found asleep or drunk or something in the flowersā¦a good summer forage i think.
Also Zinnias are worth growing hereā¦ I spend about $5 a year and get an amazing amount of enjoyment out of themā¦plus they are magnets for pollinators near the houseā¦ the wild natives are their main forage though. As well as my brambles and elders etc.
My blueberries are pollenated by bumblebees. We are getting some work done at the yard and I didnāt see any Bbees for almost a week. Thankfully there was one guy exploring the blossoms today. Hope more will arrive.
We had these pollinating boring bumblebees along woods that I allowed to bore and brood in our deck. Loud, intrusive, but non stinging. Also colonized dead ash. My blueberries never saw a euro honeybee that I new of. They were work horses. Spray late in the dusk with something low tox. They are the best.
Good old Carpenter bees. In middle Georgia on one of the highways there is an immense old plantation house from the mid 1800ās. In what was once a huge Peach orchard.
You just stand there amazed the house somehow stands with I do not know how many Carpenter Bee holes. Literally every inch seems to have a hole on this 3 story house.
i do the same. my ditches are covered with probably 20 different types of wild flowers that flower throughout the season as well as others i interplanted around my trees and bushes. i have about a dozen brush piles that i add to every year. got lots of bumbles and masons on my plants. last spring is the earliest Iāve seen hummingbirds here. saw them feeding on my honeyberry flowers in early May.
It looks to me like itās saying hey, wait for me! That is hardware cloth that it is going through. We put that on so pollinators could get in and out but squirrels could not.
when its near freezing in the spring, i find the bumbles on the foliage near the blooms vibrating their wings trying to warm up. they tolerate me stoking their backs without trying to sting.
Iāve left branch piles, but I never got anything to stay, and it mustāve been because I didnāt have lots of flowers that are food through the growing season, but Iām remedying that now.
Bumblebees usually nest in abandon rodent burrows.
In early spring, you can see the queens searching for holes in the ground . Artificially, you can make things similar to a rodent burrow with a prominent hole leading into a chamber with the nesting material like a rodents nestā¦
Like it, upside down flower pot with dry Grass inside.
Here is a link for ideasā¦.
. Bumblebee nest boxes and nest sites
In a video and/or article I read, the same people said they had little success, or none at all, so I didnāt want to invest in it. Do you know if anyone has had success with that method?
ādrunkā on the flowers.
