Kitchen Garden Forum

One compartment of our three-part 'sparrow terrace' is occupied by a bumblebee nest (they make a fascinating very loud humming noise in the box, even in the dark!), but I can't identify them. According to the descriptions on bumblebee websites, it could be a (common) buff-tailed bumblebee, but this is described as the largest of the UK bumblebees whereas our bumblebees are very small, dark with a buff-coloured tail and an orange band behind the head. Any suggestions?
The other end of the 'sparrow terrace' is filled with a wasp nest, by the way. The centre is empty (I think!).

They could be early nesting bumblebee, they are small and not usually seen in autumn

I wonder if you have the same ones as I have in my shed as mentioned in another thread, they favour nest boxes and get excited if you tap the box, very pretty. http://bumblebeeconservation.org/images ... rticle.pdf

For the past few years Tree Bumblebees have used blue tit nest boxes in my garden. They have a red thorax and black abdomen with a white tail.

Thank you, Geoff and Plumpudding - yes, that's what they are. Today they were very busy even during the rain. We have a lot of wild flowers in the garden and it seemed they were particularly hard at work collecting food on all the vetchling flowers.

Having now looked at the website suggested by Geoff and at one or two others, I am quite fascinated by these bumblebees. The bird nesting material in the box is partly protruding from the hole and the bumblebees have left just a small opening where there is a constant coming and going. And they have a really loud hum, audible from quite a distance away!

They are very busy bees. Mine seem to be getter bigger or at least there are some bigger ones.