Bees in bird nesting box

[Primrose]

We have a small but growing colony of bumblebees? which have taken over a blue tit bird nesting box in the garden. I'm sorry we won't be having the bluetits but am delighted about the bees.

Can anybody tell me what we can expect from them? I wasn't planning to interfere with them in any way but not sure whether this colony is viable and how long we might expect it to be there. The area around is by the pyracantha hedge is buzzing with them.

I really want to prune the hedge a little near where the next box is because it's getting intrusive - will this upset the bees?

[Tony Hague]

Lucky you. Bumble bees are supposed to be the best thing we have for pollinating tomatoes. To me they are such a welcome part of the English summer.

They don't seem to be terribly aggressive, but someone may know better ? They surely can't be as bad as the ground nesting wasps I disturbed one year at the allotment - I had them in my hair and clothes, I was running around swatting myself like something out of a cartoon ! Not good.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Hi Primrose, We've also got a new colony of Tree bumblebees in a blue tit box. They are quite near the back door, but aren't any bother, and I had trimmed the jasmine that grows round it before I noticed they were there. This species has only recently appeared in this country and last year was the first time I'd seen them in our garden. They have a reddish thorax, a black abdomen and a white tail. Do you know what yours are?

With all this horrible weather, the bumblebees seem to have been the only pollinating insects going on all the fruit tree blossom. I've hardly seen any honey bees at all, so just hope the bumblebees have done their job. We get about five types of bumblebees and some of the tiny mason bees here. I've joined the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and they have some good identification charts. They also sell flower seeds that bees like and it all goes to support their conservation work.

[adam-alexander]

We had bees in the bird nest box last year. They were no trouble and disappeared in about October or November. The box has been cleaned out and repositioned - thus far no bees and no blue tits, but we shall see.

[PLUMPUDDING]

The bees only live for one season and a fertilized queen is the only one to over winter. She then starts a new colony up the next spring when she comes out of hibernation, not necessarily in the same place.