Does anyone have bumble bees?

[littleredsquirrel]

Dh has been going on and on about having honey bees. Thing is I know (because I know him very well) that this will be the latest fad and that after spending a fortune on hives and bee keeping suits etc he'll loose interest or be too busy to do anything with them.

So I was looking at just getting him one of those bee houses for the garden and then saw that you can buy colonies of bumble bees. Thought this might be a sort of halfway house (not that I'm testing his staying power or anything.....)

Anyone have any experience with bumble bees?

Sorry, I don't know much about bumbles, but I had a honeybee hive when I was a teenager. They stung me quite a lot and then they all died after a hard winter . There's a ton of stuff to know about how to keep bees and look after them - I'd really recommend he gets in touch with a local beekeeping society and see if he can buddy a keeper through the summer to see what's entailed. Also, you'd need a big(ish) garden or an accommodating local land owner - if you have children or near neighbours, you don't want the bees' flight paths to coicide with where they play/hang out washing/sunbathe.

That said, my 12yo DD is bee-mad so we will probably go down that road again before too long...