#flowerpot — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

by JanW

Excerpt: "Bumblebees can be held in a very wide range of nest boxes, made out a lot of materials. You can keep them in a buried #flowerpot or #teapot, a cardboard box, stone box or styrofoam box, and many more. I will show you how to build just one type of wooden box here. If you are interested in the other types of boxes, then you'll find lots of designs on the internet.

"Bumblebees are not very fussy when they choose a nest, but they like a place with a long entrance (some of them can dig tunnels of more than 2 meters to their nest) or a vestibule.

"The measurements of the box are not an exact science. My boxes are 350mm long, 196mm wide and 170mm high, but you can alter these dimensions to match bits of leftover wood you have lying around. The only things that are important are, that the entry hole should be about 25mm in diameter and that the nest chamber itself should not be smaller than 150mm x 150mm x 150mm.

"I used 18mm plywood for the sides and 9mm plywood for the top and the bottom. Everything is glued and screwed together except for the lid. The lid is held into place by two strips of wood that are glued on the inside of the lid to prevent it from sliding open. A heavy roof tile is put on top to prevent it from blowing off and to protect it against the rain.
On one of the boxes that I build, I added a 'landing pad' for the bumble bees so that they don't have to fly directly into the hole.

"Last thing to do is to cover the ventilation holes with some sort of very fine mesh to prevent the bumblebees from using it as a 'door' and to prevent other animals like ants and wax-moths to come inside. Make sure to fix it properly as bumble bees are very strong. The first queen that I added pushed the mesh away and escaped.

"To give the bumblebees an orientation point, you can paint the entrance around the opening in a bright color. Bumble bees are especially attracted to blue, but can't see a lot of red so that's something to keep in mind."

Learn more:
https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-Nest-Box-for-Bumblebees/

#SolarPunkSunday #DIYBeeHouses #BeeNesting #BeeHouses #BumblebeeNests #BeeHousePlans