Help! I've disturbed a Bumble Bee Nest!

[PavlovaFaith]

I feel terrible! They were burrowing into a hanging basket outside my kitchen door and I was replacing the basket (it's falling to bits and won't last through autumn/winter) and as I was digging around to take out the plants I wanted, there was a lot of buzzing and I unearthed about 4 Bumble Bees. Now what do I do? I'm reading online that I could have destroyed their colony, can I save them?

Help very much appreciated!

What area are you in? Most counties have a beekeeping association who can advise/come and collect them.

Thank you I'll check, I'm N Yorks

Someone posted recently on another thread that beekeepers aren't interested in moving bumble bees when I suggested the OP contact a beekeeper .

Only 4 bees? I thought bees lived in hives? Are you sure they're bees?

Beekeepers are generally only interested in honeybees. There are many sorts of bees, all very important for pollination, but only one species of honeybees. Not all bees live in massive hive colonies, some are fairly solitary creatures that make little underground hives. I've disturbed a few over the years, as they seemed to favour one of my borders, so I keep a big, broken terracotta pot that I can use to prop over the hive and avoid destroying it. Can you sacrifice the plants and just leave the hanging basket alone? Put the whole thing in another basket and hang it up again. They might reestablish the hive in the same soil?

ww2.rspb.org.uk/community/wildlife/homesforwildlife/f/905/t/20237.aspx

www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bumblebee-nests/

www.bbowt.org.uk/wildlife/wildlife-advice/bees/different-kinds-bees

Okay I'd already put up the new basket and removed most of the plants. There were 4 bees that I unearthed but the whole basket was buzzing furiously. I've left the basket nearby and I'm just going to hope that they sort themselves out. I don't seem to have any confused bees about so I think they're alright!

The nest will be in its last stages : probably mosgly providing shelter for newly mated queens while they fatten up and hibernate elsewhere for winter. The remains of the colony will die off (the frosts will kill the last of them).

Leaving it be is the best policy.

Beekeepers don't touch bumble bee nests because they have no means of helping bumbles : you can't shove a bumble colony into a honeybee hive, they would all just die.

Thanks @MrsBertBibby that's really helpful.