bumblebee nest in lawn will they return 2013

meercatsunited

we are honoured to have the bees choose our garden to nest.

I think the nest is new this year and although happy to leave them bee have not been able to find out if when the old queen and workers die do the new queens leave in autumn to find other nest sites or does one of them takeover the old nest or do they all stay in situ for the winter then find new sites.

at the moment we have a few new queens coming and going

the bees are I believe are red tailed and common.

is it worth collecting the bees wax when they have abandoned the nest.

deniseduck

We too have had bumblebees nesting, in our case in a robin nestbox which, however, has never been used by robins or anything else!
We too wonder what happens next, as the bees seem to have all gone now and we don't know whether to clean out the box or just leave things alone and hope they come back next year. Don't know what kind of bees they are, but are small and blonde(!) Weirdly, too, earlier this year I had two bees apparently on piggyback fly into me. Were these mating or merely fighting? As you can tell, we don't know much about these things, although are keen to encourage wildlife and want to do the right thing. Sorry, didn't mean to highjack your post. Just got carried away on bee topics.

meercatsunited

thats ok, yes they were mating, I found this site today http://bumblebeeconservation.org/about-bees/identification/

gives lots of info and identification

deniseduck

Thanks for that, I'll go and have a look on that site.

Blackjack_Davy

meercatsunited wrote: »

we are honoured to have the bees choose our garden to nest.

I think the nest is new this year and although happy to leave them bee have not been able to find out if when the old queen and workers die do the new queens leave in autumn to find other nest sites or does one of them takeover the old nest or do they all stay in situ for the winter then find new sites.

at the moment we have a few new queens coming and going

the bees are I believe are red tailed and common.

is it worth collecting the bees wax when they have abandoned the nest.

They're anything but common and I believe are protected by law. I also believe the nests only last for a year and are then abandoned. Only honey bees overwinter in numbers I believe.