# Bumble bee nesting boxes are ready.



## BEES4U

I have a few home made nest boxes made for this season.
I planted a large garden for native bees.
The snaps look real good.
I have planted a lot of lupines too.
I am trying out the Russel lupines to see how they do this season. I 
I have not seen very many native pollinators for the past years.
Regards,
Ernie
Lucas apiaries


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## Oldbee

Sounds great! I have seen bumble bees cruising around my patio in spring every year and have been reading the book from Minn. U. What size are your boxes? Do you have it partitioned. I don't quite understand if the partition shown in plans goes way up to the top. Did you paint the exterior? Are you going to put hardware screen on the bottom of the nest area; like in some illustrations? I think building a small "starter box" and then capturing a queen would be too complicated for me. What species will you get there? Ours will probably be *B. impatiens*. Thanks, Good luck!


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## BEES4U

Here is the web site plans that we used.

http://tomclothier.hort.net/page38.html

Construction and Placement of: 
Bumblebee Nest Box 
Construction: 
Scrap plywood (1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thickness.) 

A rough cut 2 x 4 (such as cedar) about 6½ inches long. 

3/4 inch pvc pipe, 6 to 8 inches long. 

1/8" x 8" x 15" clear acrylic panel (optional, but practical) 

Dimensions: 
Front and back each 5½" high x 15" wide 

Sides each 5½" high x (8" minus two times the thickness of the material used), e.g. if using 3/4" plywood, the sides pieces will be 6½" wide. 

Bottom 10" x 15" 

Top about 14" x 17" 

Acrylic panel 8" x 15" 

Assembly: 
Drill vent holes near the top of the side panels. Cover with fine screening which should be glued or stapled firmly into place. Assemble side panels to front and back panels to form a box as in the diagram. Fasten the box to the bottom plate with the landing area extending to the front as shown. The diagram shows that a 3/4" hole should be drilled through the 2 x 4 connecting the two chambers about an inch from the back of the box. Fit the roughly surfaced 2 x 4 to the bottom plate, front panel, and back panel, so that two chambers are formed. One chamber should be 5½" wide and will serve as a vestibule. The brood chamber will be 8" wide. There should be 2" of air space above the 2 x 4. Surfaces of the 2 x 4 need to be rough so that the bumblebees can climb over it with ease. 

Drill a hole in the front panel to accommodate the pvc pipe. The pipe should extend from the front panel up to the hole in the 2 x 4. Before installing the pvc pipe, spray the interior of the pipe with black paint. Spring queens will be looking for mouse holes, so you want to minimize reflected light inside the entrance pipe. The pipe should be held in place by a tight fit in the front panel and by some glue or caulk between it and the bottom plate. Place a small quantity of upholsterer's cotton in the brood chamber. 

The acrylic panel need not be installed unless you wish to inspect an established colony. Certain species such as B. fervidus and B. pennsylvanicus are known to prevent such inspections. Most others range from "slightly more forgiving" all the way to "quite docile." I prefer to install the panel so that an energetic skunk or racoon who is large enough to remove the top cover will still have no access to my bumblebees. 

The top cover should have some type of drip cap installed all around the perimeter of the underside so that no water could run toward the box. This could be done with 1/4" to 3/8" quarter round molding or any wood or metal scrap. The exterior portions of the box should be sealed and painted because there is no way of knowing how many years before any particular box gets a colony. There is no need to finish the interior of the box, because it is protected from the weather and should you be fortunate to attract a colony, it will be necessary to discard the box at the end of the season of actual use. Discarding a used nest box is important because there is no practical way to sterilize a wood box. There are a wide variety of parasites which feed off bumblebees and the nest contents during the season. Eggs of these parasites may be deposited in cracks and crevices. Nest boxes constructed of metal or plastic could probably be cleaned with steam or chemicals. Wood boxes are quickly made, and easy to replace. 

Siting the nest boxes: 
The boxes should be placed in full or partial shade. The entrance hole should be from 4" to 10" off the ground in an area where there is no possibility of flooding the entrance. The nest box should be isolated from the ground by brick, stone, scrap lumber, etc. to avoid excessive moisture. Place 5 or 6 bricks on the cover to insure that weather and animals cannot remove it. I suggest that you select an area where you will not be mowing grass within 10 ft. of the entrance. If desired, you can cover the entire installation with wood chips or other mulch providing that vent holes are fully exposed. This would assist the bumblebees in regulating temperature extremes. 

The next requirement is patience. If no colony has been established by the end of July, return the nest box to storage until next season. Your nest boxes will last a long time since they will only be exposed to the weather during April, May, June, and July each year until they get a colony. Bumblebees emerging from hibernation in early spring are fertilized queens. They may search all day long for up to two weeks to find an "ideal" nest site. A spring queen with pollen in her pollen baskets has already found her nest site. Avoid checking the nest box for activity. If a queen is disturbed before really settling-in, she will most likely move on. If you get one box in three occupied, you have been fortunate indeed. Reinstall your nest boxes every year, and hope for the best. Continually add to your plantings of nectar producers preferred by bumblebees. See a list of such plants. Be sure to include some plants that are blooming at the same time that the spring queens are emerging. 

Some of the above has been adapted from materials developed by the B. C. Fruit Testers Association, Post Office Box 48123, 3575 Douglas Street, Victoria, B. C., V8Z 7H5, Canada. 

If you have any questions about Bombus biology or identification of bumblebees working your property, do a web search. There is a considerable volume of information on the WWW under the search terms: Hymenoptera, Pollinators, Bombus, and combinations of those terms. For more information on Bumble Bees, check out my list of native pollinator references. 



Bumblebee on Cephelaria leucantha 
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## BEES4U

*I don't quite understand if the partition shown in plans goes way up to the top.*

The partition is a little easier to see in the diagram that is supplied with my last posting.
My floor is wood. But I plan putting in a hardware floor above it for cleaning later.
I dipped the entire box in melted parrafin for about 5 min. 
i do not plan painting the box.
You will need to locate a piece of black PVC 3/4' pipe or spray paint the white PVC pipe.
The female searches for an old mouse nest.
I found an old mouse nest for nesting material. You can use upholsters cotton.

The stats are low for a habitat to be located and used by the bumble bee.
You may put out 0 boxes and maybe 3 are used.
The lab. culture of this bee is a garded secret and now there is some information on the web.
I noticed that a lab wants $150.00/ box to mail out for pollination.
I did not see one bumble bee last year!
i planted 46 snapdragon flowers in my front yard for them to hang out and hopefully I can catch a bee that has not started collecting pollen. I will wait and see.
If I have to I will buy a box from a lab in your area.

There is a technique using honey bees to get the bumble bee female to start making the first "pots".

Regards,
Ernie
Lucas Apiaries


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## Oldbee

Oh my goodness! Thankyou, thank you for all that information, [I don't type fast]. That clears up a lot. The part I don't understand is: "The stats are low for a habitat to be located and used by the bumble bee. You may put out 0 boxes and maybe three are used." lol. That must be quite a trick! The part about "discarding a used box is important" - and not being able to clean/sterilize it properly is somewhat bothersome but I suppose the bees deal with that naturally by not reusing nest sites. The bumble bees here have investigated the holes used by the squirrels that make their home under my patio slab but have never nested, I guess. Yup! squirrels that live underground; 13-lined Ground Squirrel but we call them all gophers. I wish there was a place to buy a small amount of wood that was already coated with parrafin; maybe there is. I will have to paint and maybe rub the interior slightly with bees wax. Looking forward to this. Thanks again.


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## dcross

Oldbee, they're big fans of fiberglass insulation as nesting material, I had some laying on my garage floor and they moved right in.


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## MichaelW

Thanks for posting that paper. A friend of mine gave me 4 of these the other week but I didn't have a copy of the design/plan. The partition doesn't go all the way to the top. I don't really understand the function of the partition using the box the way they suggest. Seems like a partition, that does go all the way to the top, would be good for starting queens and having the separate area to put in pollen, nectar and have room to poop till you release them. I'm going to put these out this spring as an experiment 'as is'. My friend put some out till they rotted away and didn't get any bumble bees, but he didn't put in any cotton so ???? Well see I guess. 

I want to try and catch a few queens too to raise seperately.


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## BEES4U

*Paintig*

The information that I got said to make sure that the paint has a few weeks to cure.
The reason that I dipped the box in parrafin is because I dip the wooden partitions for my 4-way honey bee queen mating nucs.
The Aussies have been dipping boxes for sanitization.


Regards,
Ernie Lucas Apiaries


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## BeeAware

Moved to forum


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