All That for a Bee?

(Sept. 20, 2007) I’ll do just about anything to make a bee happy. I’ve filled my garden with asters and sedum and whatever else the bees seem interested in. I let leaf cutter bees carve tiny holes in my rosebushes and fly off unsteadily with a bit of green clutched between their legs. (I think they use the leaves to line their nests, which are really just tiny little spaces in bits of rotten wood where their larva hatch.) I heard that some species of native bees dwell underground in winter and that over-mulching can ruin their habitat, so I’m even rethinking my mulch strategy just for them. And of course, I never, ever use pesticides in the garden.

All this effort seems to have paid off. My apple trees were clearly well-pollinated this spring; the branches are bent over with the weight of the fruit. On a warm day, the garden is simply overrun with bees, butterflies and other creatures scouting for pollen and nectar. It’s like the Discovery Channel out there, only without the commercials.

Photo by Amy Stewart.

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But that’s not enough. I continue to get suckered into buying toys for my bees. Last spring I bought a bee block, a wooden block drilled with holes where solitary native bees could nest. I even bought bee larva in tubes. They were supposed to hatch and fly around in spring, but to my horror, only one or two made it out and the rest died in their little cardboard chamber. It was a disheartening experience, but I carry on.

Now I have purchased a new toy for my bees: the Humble Bumble Home. It’s a plywood box that resembles a birdhouse, with a couple holes for access and air, and a layer of cotton bedding inside. Apparently some species of native bumblebees build small colonies in the spring to hatch their young. Unlike the European honeybees, these are not large, permanent hives, but small, temporary constructions of wax cells holding six to eight eggs. (Apparently the queen sits on the eggs like a chicken, which is a charming idea, but I wonder how much heat a bumblebee really gives off.)

These colonies can be found, according to the instructions that came with my bee house, in abandoned corners of the garden or under the eaves of a shed. This house is supposed to meet the needs of the bees throughout the summer season, at which time they’ll abandon their shelter and go into hibernation for the winter.

Well, that all sounds pretty cool. So I just set the house outside and wait for some bees to show up, right?

Not so much. According to the instructions, I have three options for inviting bumblebees into their new home:

Method 1 : Find a quiet spot on the north side of the house or behind some shrubs. If it might rain in your climate, place an old cookie sheet or a piece of roofing paper on top and use a brick to weigh it down. If there are raccoons are skunks, elevate the house to keep the bees out of harm’s way. It’s remotely possible that bees will show up, but the instructions warn that “like birdhouses, Mother Nature doesn’t guarantee occupancy.”

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