Yes, you can raise bumble bees, though it’s significantly harder than keeping honey bees. Bumble bee colonies are annual, lasting only one season before dying off, and even in controlled laboratory settings only about 19% of queens successfully produce their first workers. The process requires careful timing, specific housing, and a realistic understanding that failure rates are high, especially for beginners.
Why Bumble Bees Are Different From Honey Bees
Bumble bee colonies don’t survive from year to year. A single queen emerges in spring, builds a colony that peaks at 30 to 400 workers by late summer, then produces new queens and males before the entire colony dies. Only the newly mated queens survive, hibernating underground for six to nine months before starting the cycle again the following spring. This means you’re not maintaining a permanent hive. You’re either restarting each year with a new queen or buying a fresh colony.
Two Ways to Get Started
You can catch a wild queen in spring or buy a commercially raised colony. Each approach has trade-offs.
Catching a Wild Queen
Wild queens emerge from hibernation in mid to late April through May, depending on your climate. At this stage they’re solitary, foraging for pollen and nectar to provision their first nest. You can spot them flying low to the ground, often investigating holes and crevices for nest sites. A net and a small ventilated container are all you need for capture. The window is narrow: once a queen has already established a nest and begun laying, she’s much harder to relocate successfully.
Some people skip catching entirely and set out nest boxes to attract queens naturally. Researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory placed 100 wooden boxes (roughly 20 × 20 × 20 cm, with a 1.5 cm entrance hole) at field sites in early May and checked them weekly using an endoscopic camera. This passive approach requires patience, and colonization rates for unmanaged boxes tend to be low.
Buying a Colony
Commercial bumble bee colonies are available from agricultural suppliers. These typically contain the common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) and arrive with a queen, workers, and brood at various stages. A full colony runs around $290, with smaller startup colonies closer to $178. Expect about $100 in flat-rate shipping on top of that. These colonies are designed for greenhouse pollination and arrive ready to work, making them the easiest entry point if you just want bumble bees active in your garden.
Which Species Are Easiest to Raise
Not all bumble bee species tolerate captivity equally. A USDA guide identifies six species in the western U.S. that are relatively easy to rear: Bombus huntii, B. bifarius, B. centralis, B. appositus, B. occidentalis, and B. rufocinctus. In eastern North America, B. impatiens is the standard for captive rearing and the species sold commercially. If you’re catching wild queens, start with whatever common species is abundant in your area rather than targeting a rare one.
Success rates vary dramatically by species. A decade-long study of 15 western North American species found that nest initiation rates (queens that at least started laying eggs) ranged from 5% to 76% depending on the species. Nest establishment, meaning at least one worker was produced, ranged from 0% to 55%. Across all species combined, only about 41% of queens initiated nests and just 19% established colonies with workers. Pairing two queens together (“cofounding”) bumped initiation to 54%, though establishment stayed around 21%.
Setting Up a Nest Box
A functional bumble bee nest box is a simple plywood structure with two chambers. The front chamber acts as a vestibule (about 5.5 inches wide), and the rear brood chamber is about 8 inches wide. Overall dimensions are roughly 15 inches wide, 10 inches deep, and 5.5 inches tall inside, built from half-inch to three-quarter-inch plywood.
A PVC pipe connects the entrance hole to an opening between chambers, giving the bees a tunnel-like approach that mimics underground nesting. Spray the inside of the pipe with black paint to keep it dark. Drill ventilation holes near the top of the side panels and cover them with fine screening to prevent moisture buildup without letting pests in. The divider between chambers should have rough surfaces so bees can climb over it easily. A slightly oversized top panel with a drip edge keeps rain from seeping in.
Inside the brood chamber, add a small amount of upholstery cotton or dried moss as nesting material. Some rearers include a small ball of dryer lint. The queen will rearrange it herself, building wax pots for nectar storage and forming a pollen clump where she’ll lay her first eggs.
Feeding Your Colony
Bumble bees need both sugar (as a nectar substitute) and pollen. For nectar, a sugar solution of about 30% sugar by weight works well for general feeding, though bees will forage on concentrations anywhere from 15% to 60%. You can use commercial bee syrup (sold as Apiinvert or Biogluc) diluted with water, or make a simple sucrose solution. Offer it in small syringes or shallow dishes with cotton wicks so bees can access it without drowning.
Pollen is the harder requirement. Bumble bee larvae need real pollen for protein. Commercially available honeybee-collected pollen, washed and dried, is the standard. Research has shown that bumble bees are pickier about nectar quality than pollen quality: nectar foragers strongly prefer the highest sugar concentrations, while pollen foragers will accept a wider range of pollen types and purities. Still, you can’t substitute pollen entirely with something inert. Cellulose and glass powder, for example, have zero nutritional value. Provide fresh pollen regularly, especially during early colony growth when the queen is rearing her first brood alone.
Colony Development Timeline
After a queen begins laying, the first workers emerge from their cocoons in two to three weeks. This is the most precarious period. The queen is doing everything herself: foraging, incubating the brood clump, feeding larvae, and defending the nest. If she’s in captivity, you’re essentially replacing her foraging duties by providing food directly.
Once workers appear, the colony becomes more self-sustaining. Workers take over foraging and brood care while the queen focuses on laying eggs. The colony grows through early and midsummer, reaching peak size by late summer. At that point, the queen shifts to producing males (from unfertilized eggs) and new queens. This reproductive phase can start as early as late June or as late as September, depending on species. After mating, the new queens fatten up and dig into loose soil to hibernate. Everyone else in the colony dies.
Overwintering New Queens
If you want to continue the cycle, you’ll need to overwinter the new queens artificially. Research on artificial hibernation has found that a temperature near 2.5°C (about 36°F, the temperature of a typical refrigerator) at 70% relative humidity gives the best survival rates. Queens kept under these conditions showed the highest survival at one, two, three, and five months of hibernation. A small sealed container with slightly damp vermiculite or peat moss, placed in a refrigerator, can approximate these conditions. Queens naturally hibernate for six to nine months, so plan to remove them in spring when local wildflowers begin blooming.
Disease Risks to Wild Populations
This is where raising bumble bees gets ethically complicated. Managed bumble bees can spread parasites to wild populations, and the consequences have been severe. In the late 1990s, commercially reared bumble bees in California developed high levels of a microsporidian parasite called Nosema bombi. This coincided with dramatic declines in several wild bumble bee species across North America, including Bombus occidentalis and Bombus affinis (the rusty patched bumble bee, now federally endangered). Molecular evidence suggests the parasite was introduced to wild populations through commercial colonies.
The problem is widespread in commercial production. A 2008 study found that 74% of commercially produced colonies examined were infected with at least one parasite before ever being opened by the buyer. Wild bumble bees caught near sites using commercial colonies carry higher infection rates than those found two or more kilometers away, a clear signal of disease spillover.
Infected bumble bees become sluggish, die sooner, lay fewer eggs, and produce smaller colonies with fewer new queens. If you’re raising bumble bees from wild-caught queens, avoid releasing commercially purchased bees in the same area. If you’re buying colonies, keep them enclosed in a greenhouse or screened structure when possible to minimize contact with wild populations. Some regions have regulations restricting which species can be purchased or transported, so check your state or provincial rules before ordering.
Realistic Expectations
Even experienced researchers lose most of their colonies. The 19% establishment rate in laboratory conditions, with controlled temperature, unlimited food, and professional monitoring, is a ceiling most hobbyists won’t reach. Your first season will likely involve queens that refuse to lay, brood that fails to develop, or colonies that dwindle before producing new queens. Starting with multiple queens improves your odds simply through numbers. If you catch or purchase four or five queens, getting one or two successful colonies is a reasonable outcome.
The payoff is real, though. A thriving bumble bee colony is a remarkably effective pollinator. Bumble bees work in cooler temperatures and lower light than honey bees, and their buzz pollination technique (vibrating flowers at high frequency to release pollen) makes them superior pollinators for tomatoes, peppers, blueberries, and many wildflowers. Even a single successful colony can visibly improve fruit set in a home garden.