I have been on a wood carving course this weekend, more of which later, but importantly I came across my first bumble bee nest of the year at the hall.
The picture is not great, but it gives me the opportunity to plead for care and consideration when faced with a bumble bee nest.
If you find a bumble bee nest in the coming weeks (this one is in a house cavity with access through an air brick), then please try to leave them alone and enjoy them and their free pollinating service. We need all the bees we can get and calling in the exterminators at the first sign of a few large fluffy bees is not to be done lightly.
Bumble bees will die out in the Autumn and do not return to the same nest. So even if you have bumble bees in a slightly inconvenient place then try to work with them for just a few weeks and then they will be gone.
Only the queens survive winter and they hibernate, so if you find a large bumble bee in your compost heap in the cold Spring then it will be a hibernating queen, so please put her back carefully.