[cloddopper]

When I was out by the bonsai benches on Saturday morning I saw a bee line of bumble bees heading for one of the vacated bird nesting boxes that has been used by Blue Tits this year to raise their young till they fledged .
 The nest box is a piece of 100 mm dia pastic soil pipe about 250 mm long fitted with a sloping plastic roof , a wooden base plug with two 6mm drain holes & a 27 mm entrance hole .

 I must have counted 25 or more bees going in before one came out .  The sentry bees at the entrance were fanning like mad to keep their little nest at the right temperature & humidity . It's going to be a nice observation exercise to see what happens during this summer & over winter as to if the nest expires entirely or if it returns to life next year .

[Fleecewife]

What a lovely thing to see     A beeline - I like that 


Is it possible to shade the nest, as plastic will be difficult for the bees to keep equable (same for the tits if the sun shines directly onto the structure) .  Can you identify the type of bumble bee you have?  I'm stuck at 'ordinary bumble bee' and 'carder bee', but there are several more.

[cloddopper]

It's shaded sort of by the greenhouse roof and there is nearly always a slight wind blowing across the bonsai ( they are on timed automatic mist spraying ) so it is nearly always giving off a level of dampness .

 Later today Alison discovered that another of the fledged nests ( A wren's this time ) was being investigated as a site for a new bumble bees nest as several  flew to it whilst she was  doing her Bonsai .  This one is dapple shaded save for 12.00 ish till 14.30 or so when it gets full sun. 
What is amazing is that the bees are taking moss of our oak trees and bringing it back to the nest site a strand at a time to insulate the new nest , long before they get down to constructing a few dozen egg cells .

 The biggest bumble bees nest I've dealt with was in a large stables feed barn ,  in the hay storage area . It was constructed inside dozen of more wooden pallet that gave a vented floor to the bales of hay stood on top of the pallets . It took up the full space of 1 & 1/2 pallets ,, bumblebees like golf balls.

Boy oh boy it was boiling hot mid June day , me in my full bee suit,  then to make it worse I got stung under my armpit …. It was one of the most painful bee stings I've ever had . Had to take an hour or so out,  to sit calmly out of my suit in the shade under a big apple tree ,  have some tepid sugary drinks & recover before  removing the nest & locating it elsewhere at the farm.