Bees nest in the garden

This will be my last post on this lixy as I could talk/rave on about bees until the cows come home. My 2 hives are sit in front of a flower bed that has flowers that bees like and wild flowers too. I usually start weeding it about 06:00 before the bees emerge. I was weeding it one day and as they started to emerge I was buzzed a few times by the guard bees. Just a little more and then I'll stop I thought. A couple of minutes later I felt someone/thing watching me and I looked up to see a guard bee hovering a couple of feet from me at eye level. I said to it 'Okay, I get the message. I'm going' and packed up my stuff and left. It's the only time I ever experienced that but I think she was telling me that I'd been buzzed and I was on my final warning. It was truly amazing. They are incredible.

Thank you stewaris. My inclination was to leave nature well alone to look after itself and now I know I can. It was just that I was already interfering by cutting back the surrounding plants.

Bees are very soothing I think and I love the smell of beeswax polish.
My family humour me (think I’m crazy) but I enjoy visiting the nest for a little chat. Sometimes it moves a little, rather like seeing a baby move in a pregnant woman’s abdomen.

There will be more than one queen laid and ready to go. They will go out on mating flights and find somewhere cosy and warm to hibernate for the winter. Come next spring they'll start to build their nest and the process goes on. The new queen will find a safe place to see out the winter.

I love my honeybees. I have 2 hives in my garden and go in and check once a week/fortnight depending on weather. I find it very therapeutic as the bees like to be handled gently so slow and steady is the key. Although I have had the odd slip with a frame but the girls let me know when I've done something wrong! I love the hum when I open the hive and the smell of honey (later on in the season} and beeswax that comes out when it's first opened. I feel the world disappears when I check my bees.

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cc here are a couple of photos. I found the nest when I was cutting back the lambs ear salvia I actually picked up a handful of debris only to find it was a bees nest. The lid went back on pretty quickly I can tell you! It’s not much to look at, but we are enjoying their company.

stewaris bee keeping is one of my so far unfulfilled ambitions. I would love to help look after hives - it is definitely on the list. Do you think the embryonic queen will stay in the nest over the winter? If so then I ‘ll leave the nest as it is but we have clay soil and that area isn’t very free draining. In fact it puddles in heavy rain. I wonder if I should put a tile or some such on top to give some protection?

The only bees that hibernate through the winter are honey bees. The bumblebee queen, carder bees are a type of bumblebee, emerge in spring, build their nest, feed the the larvae and young bees until there are sufficient bees to allow the queen to stop and lay the queens for next year. I'm assuming it's the same for carder bees, but the queen bumblebee rules and bullies the other bees to do all the work once there are enough of them. Eventually the number of workers have grown to a number when they will round on the queen and kill her. However, by that time she has laid all the queens for next year and her genes will go forward. I keep honeybees and was amazed that the lovely, gentle bumbling bumble bee could be so mercenary.

Are you able to post a photograph, it sounds lovely?

Thank you both.
I’ll keep the planting pretty much the same in that area and cross my fingers.

We did have a wasps’ nest in a shrub. They came back to the original one and extended it in year 2 then suddenly abandoned it. As the children were very small then I cut the whole branch off the shrub and disposed of it. No wasps since though DH has been working on the fence and has had a couple rasping at it beside him - so maybe next year!

Wasps don’t use the same nest twice either
Perhaps having found a lovely garden to be in they ll make another one nearby

I do know that bumblebee queens move away and make a new nest, they don't use the same one twice.