The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

How to encourage bumblebees in the garden

Bumblebee boxSo what do you do if you want bumblebees in your garden?  You need to provide three types of habitat --- foraging, nesting, and hibernating.

Like honeybees, bumblebees can be encouraged by having some steady nectar-producing plants around.  Clover is a top choice since it blooms all summer long, and I can report that our bumblebees are definitely thrilled by our clover-filled lawn.  It helps to mow the lawn in sections, too, so that there are always bits in bloom.

As for nesting and hibernating --- some folks buy special bumblebee boxes like the one shown here, but that seems like a waste of cash to me.  Instead, you can turn a flower pot upside down in an out of the way spot and cover it with a lid.  The bees use the pot as a protected entrance to the underground burrow where they live.  It goes without saying that you shouldn't rototill near the bumblebee nest site so that you won't disturb their home.  Of course, the easiest solution is just to leave some areas of your yard completely alone to grow into native plants and provide a natural nesting and hibernating ground.


This post is part of our Bumblebee lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries:





Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.






profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.