About a month ago, I got a call from a local woman who had a bee problem. As a flower gardener, she knew she had bumblebees rather than honeybees, my usual bugs of choice, but she hoped I could help her. In her gardening efforts, she was getting stung as she worked near their colony. You see, in her beautiful flower garden, a nest of bumblebees had taken up residence in one of her birdhouses.
![Bumblebee house?](https://i0.wp.com/myhomeamongthehills.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/07_20_2015-010.jpg?resize=604%2C604&ssl=1)
I’ve never kept bumblebees, but I like all of the flying creatures with the word “bee” in their name so I said I would come and take a look. From talking with my grandpa a dozen or so years ago, I remembered that bumblebees do indeed make honey. As a kid, he said he and his siblings used to follow bumblebees back to their nest to collect the small caches of honey they made. Grandpa described their unusual-looking nest (better pictured here than my trying to describe it) and talked about the fun he had chasing after them.
![A bumblebee nest](https://i0.wp.com/myhomeamongthehills.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/07_20_2015-089.jpg?resize=604%2C805&ssl=1)
Isaac and I entered the woman’s garden and found, on an eye-level shepherd’s crook, a little birdhouse filled with a bumblebee nest, just as she reported. I told her I didn’t think I could get the bees out and she said, “Oh no, of course not, just take the house and all if you want to.” Of course, I wanted to so Isaac and I wrapped it in a sheet, returned home and placed it on a shepherd’s crook in my yard where it remains, still full of bumblebees.
![Bumblebee helping my raspberry blooms](https://i0.wp.com/myhomeamongthehills.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/07_20_2015-063.jpg?resize=604%2C805&ssl=1)
I am not sure how/if they will winter there, but I am inclined to leave it alone and see what happens. They have been a delightful addition to the yard and garden and we have enjoyed seeing them on blooms all over the yard!