Bumble Bee Package

Gardeners are often missing out on proper pollination due to lack of bees, which led Creative Woodcraft to put together this "Bumble Bee Pollinator Package”.

Everything you need to introduce and encourage mild mannered bumble bees!

This package will help gardeners everywhere grow more food and flowers.

See your garden explode with blossom as a result!

Package Includes

• Bumble-A-Bode (designed to accommodate a live colony of bumble bees)
• Live colony of bumble bees includes a minimum of 80 workers and 1 healthy queen
• Bumble bee nesting box – encourages newly emerging bumble bee queens to take up residence.
• Bee attractor pack – wildflower seed mix

Other

For further information please visit our educational web recourse www.BeeGAP.co.nz (Gardeners Adding Pollinators)

Bumble bees work very long hours, foraging from dawn to dusk in search of nectar and pollen even on cold, rainy or foggy days which prevent other insects from flying. Despite being cold-blooded, bumble bees can produce their own body heat chemically and by muscular activity. They maintain a thoracic temperature between 35-40 degrees Celsius through enzymes in the flight muscles which break down certain sugars and release energy in the form of heat, and this enzyme is not present in the muscles of honey bees. They may also “warm up” for flight by decoupling their wings from the flight muscles, and produce warmth through an action akin to shivering. Even at temperatures below zero, bumble bees may still be flying.

Their durability is very important as far as orchardists or home gardeners are concerned, From early springtime right through to early summer the weather can change dramatically during the day – temperatures can plummet, greatly affecting honey bees, which won’t fly below 10 degrees Celsius. This is especially important for kiwifruit growers during its brief late November flowering period – in a cold, wet season, and bumble bees may well be the only insect pollinators visiting their flowers.

Observation

Introduce and encourage bumble bees into your garden.