Keeping Bees

[Shortie]

Does anyone know of a particularly friendly breed of bee's to keep in an urban garden?

My Dad has always gone on about wanting to keep bees and now won't because of my young son. I remember reading about a breed of bee that were particulary docile and better for keeping if you have children. I think they were called 'red' something or others

Anyone know what I'm waffling on about or had any experience keeping bees with young children?

[Lesley Jay]

Shortie there is a link to a good site for identifying different bees in the thread Can't Do Without It by Smallblueplanet.

[smallblueplanet]

Hi LJ - not sure you can 'keep' bumblebees as such, but there are various beekeeping sites out there - just google it!

Keeping Bumble bees link mostly English on a German site - check out the bumblebee video on page 3

There are nest boxes for bumblebees (notoriously unsuccessful) and also for mason bees (usually successful) but they are not 'kept' like honeybees.

Red Mason Bee link

follow link to Oxford Bee Co.

[smallblueplanet]

Oh by the way - its a 'safe' video LJ!!!

[Shortie]

Cheers SBP, Red Mason Bees were the ones, I think you can buy nests to them... I'll take a look now!

[smallblueplanet]

Homes for bees link or you can easily make your own - just get some blocks of wood (ie fence posts?) and drill differing sized holes.