We are bumblebee enthusiasts from Czechia, where rearing bumblebees got a long tradition for over 40 years.
Rearing bumblebees becoming more and more popular. It brings joy, but also brings a lot of troubles. Bumblebees got a lot of natural enemies, and they are also very sensitive to heat.
Temperatures above 35°C killing bumblebee larvae. Many natural nesting places, such as underground nests or nests in walls, or long grass, are better protected from extreme heat waves or spring late frost, than a simple wooden box, usually used for rearing bumblebees. Also their natural nesting places are usually masked with a various smells, and for pests its more difficult to find them. Unfortunately a many bumblebee enthusiasts do not end season with new bumblebee queens, instead they find their nest boxes full of wax moth caterpillars. Sometimes they also find tens or hundreds of 2 mm small wasps called Melittobia, which comes from bumblebee cocoons. instead of new bumblebees. This is the reason why we develop a models of improved nest boxes.
Our nest boxes including a passive pest protection:
- Protective flip doors.
- Vent protected by fine mesh with diagonal 0,2 mm (melittobia wasp and freshly hatched caterpillars of wax moth can pass diagonal larger than 0.3 mm) and additional aluminum mesh to protect fine mesh against biting through bumblebees.
- Additional cap to vent, working as a trap for wax moths, which can go in, but can’t go back out.
- Well sealed inner space with bumblebee nests, using a polycarbonate plate tight fitting a wooden edge.
- Legs fitting to plastic bottle caps, which, if filled by biologically degradable oil to motor saws, works as a barrier to a crawling insects, such as ants.
Also our nest boxes are made from birch waterproof plywood which is a dense material which got a lot of heat capacity. Economy model has 3 cm plywood walls, while Double wall model has 15 and 18 mm plywood walls with additional 1 cm air gap. Result of this configuration is slowing down the outside temperature changes for several hours, which protecting against temperature peaks.
Comparison | Double wall nest box | Economy Nest box |
Walls | 15 and 18 mm waterproof plywood with 10 mm air gap | 30 mm waterproof plywood |
Roof | 15 and 18 mm waterproof plywood with 12 mm air gap | 18 mm waterproof plywood + 20 mm XPS polystyrene |
Nesting space volume | 15 liters | 14.3 liters |
Weight | 13.0 kg | 9.8 kg |
Accessories | – protective flip doors – 100% raw cotton nesting material – observation window | – protective flip doors – 100% raw cotton nesting material – observation window |
Additional options | – possibility to insert heating pad between inner and outer wall | |
Price | 139 EUR + Free Shipping | 119 EUR + Free Shipping |
Buy Dual wall nest box | Buy Economy nest box |