I went last night to a meeting of my local beekeepers association, to learn about the use of bait hives. A bait hive does what the name suggests. You put out some sort of shelter, and hope to collect some bees.
You can do this for bumble bees, or at least for those species that like nesting in boxes. Indeed, you can buy purpose built bumble bee boxes, for what always seems a large amount of money for a small and pretty rudimentary piece of woodwork. Last night's speaker confirmed something I've read elsewhere, and which is a common source of complaint from visitors to the beekeeping stand at the Tendring Show, which is that the bumble bee boxes rarely attract any bees. Apparently bumbles much prefer bird boxes, and especially boxes that contain an old bird's nest. An old mouse nest is even better, as bumble bees like the smell. Odd, honey bees don't.
You can also rediscover the joys of Blue Peter by making yourself a nest for mason bees. They like small tubes, something the size of a bamboo cane or hollow shrub stem, with one end stoppered up. A handful of these wedged into a length of drainpipe, again with the back end closed off, put a couple of metres above the ground, preferably on a south facing aspect and angled slightly downwards to shed any rain that gets in, should attract some wild bees, eventually. They don't actually set up home in there like the bumble bees, but lay their eggs and then die. You'll be able to see if any of the tubes have been used as the bee will block up the outward facing end of the tube. You can buy special wild bee tubes as well, but home made ones are much cheaper, and work just as well. Our speaker demonstrated a couple, one with the drainpipe stoppered with an old jar lid, and the other with an empty can. I suppose they were not the most elegant creations, but the bees won't mind if they're hung in an obscure corner of the garden. In fact, they'd probably be quite pleased, as they are shy creatures.
Bumbles and solitary bees are both delightful to have about the garden, and good pollinators, and increasingly rare, so you can upgrade the aesthetics of your domestic environment and give yourself a pat on the back for conservation work by providing them with a home. Our speaker was equally passionate about the need to provide suitable accommodation for swarming honey bees, so that they would not have to move into people's roof cavities, chimneys and other unsuitable places, where they would fall victim to pest controllers. I sensed that the audience were sympathetic to his conservation message, but more interested in how to obtain free bees. I fancied the idea of free bees myself. They cost a fortune to buy nowadays, what with beekeeping having become fashionable, and I'd quite like another colony or two.
Honey bees like a space which as far as possible resembles a hole in a tree trunk, with an ideal capacity of 40L. In other words, something a little smaller than the commercial brood chambers I normally use, with a solid floor and a small entrance. Putting frames of foundation or drawn comb in there will help attract them, as they like the smell of the wax, and the smell of bees, if the equipment has been previously used. On that basis you could just use a spare beehive. The speaker suggested making a copy of a proper hive, to less exacting construction standards and out of plywood. After all, it only has to stand outside in the swarming season, from about April to early August. Compared to using a spare hive, a plywood model will be cheaper, and if the bees you collect turn out to have American foul brood, burning a home made plywood box is going to be less painful than torching a couple of hundred quids' worth of Thornes' finest cedar. Which said, AFB is quite rare and while possible wouldn't be top of my list of things to worry about with a swarm.
Swarms like to move about a mile from their original hive, so you are likely to catch other people's bees rather than your own. Our speaker had tried setting boxes up next to feral colonies in Colchester Castle Park and they had shown no interest at all. With around ten bait hives set up locally he achieved a hit rate of about 20% of hives occupied in 2011, when there were very few swarms, and more like 80% in 2010, which was a swarmy year. The ideal height for a bait box for honey bees is 3 to 11 metres above the ground. Make that 3 metres then. Tottering around up a ladder 11 metres off the ground with a box of stinging insects is not my idea of how to make life easy for yourself. Actually, 3 metres sounds pretty inconvenient, and I don't have a stand that high, so I shall put my bait hive exactly where I should like the bees to remain, should I manage to catch any, which saves any issues over moving them once they've set up house.
Unless you are a beekeeper you probably don't want to attract swarms of honey bees into your garden, but you will find wild bees the most delightful companions. Solitary bees can't even sting human beings, being unable to penetrate our skins. Bumbles can (and if they do it is extremely painful) but you have to annoy them a lot before they will (I did, inadvertently).
Addendum I ended up volunteering to take on the role of treasurer for my local group, as they needed somebody and no-one else had stepped forward. The rule is that the treasurer has to stand down after three years, and ours has done his three year stint. Knowing him I'm confident I'll get some spreadsheets in good running order, and not a shoebox of mysterious invoices, unmarked cheque stubs and unreconciled bank statements. He made it sound very easy. There aren't even any capital assets to worry about.
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