Esschert Design USA WA08 Wooden Bumble Bee House , white

no takers for this beautiful and functional BB House. BUT I discovered that my backyard bumble bees already selected a nesting spot prior to setting this house out. They are under my kiddy pool that I use for a turtle sunning bin. I am going to relocate the house near the Natural Nest and see how it goes the rest of the season. This is only May and we have to go some months up here in New York.

I ordered one of these because it is the only one on the market I could find with a sloped roof. The others are all flat.It arrived quickly (Amazon rocks) but the construction is less than great. The box is very solid but there is a 1/4 gap along the front of the box. Bee houses need to be sealed tightly or at least have screen over any ventilation holes to prevent ants and other insects from entering.The roof is difficult to close as one of the triangular roof corners are cut poorly. I can fix that easily enough but I should mention that I know another person who purchased this same house and hers is also badly formed. This seems to be the norm, not an exception.I emailed the manufacturer/distributor and their response is "I checked out all our bee houses and there is 1/4 inch gap on all of them so I'd assume that this will not stop them from making their home in the box."True the bees may move in, but if the vent holes on the side are screened to keep out ants...why leave the gap???It's not a bad house, but buyer beware you will need to tweak it before use.

There were a lot of negative reviews on quality however I was very pleased with what I received I will not have to fix anything.

Whether the Bees use this or not, this Bee House is adorable along with being well made....I actually bought 2 and put them in perennial garden beds filled with Sedum and Alum that our Bumble Bees love.

I ordered a handful of Esschert Design insect and bird houses, and two arrived today. I must say that both are of less-than-expected quality, considering the item pictures. Besides having absolutely no packing materials around it (which marked up another item), this item had the following defects: the screen covering the side holes wasn't even covering all of the holes, the wood behind the front hole was was broken off from drilling through the wood (a lot), there was a large gap between the roof and the house all the way around (from the hinged back to the front, and it was warped so that one side was closer to the house than the other side, even when latched), the internal triangles used for holding the roof in the right position were not IN the right positions (one had a huge gap between the side and the roof, and the other was actually coming off from where it was nailed, to the point where I had to use wood glue to resecure it to the nails and roof).If I was able to find another for the spring that had a one-piece roof, I would return this instead of trying to fix it. Which reminds me, the metal edges are all VERY sharp.

Like the other reviews state, you must make some changes to this bee house. I re drilled the holes bc they were not drilled through all the way, added screen inside to keep insects from entering. But overall a well built little bumble bee house, i have yet to catch a bumblebee to rear in my new house :( If you buy this just be prepared to make some updates to the little home.

"I HOPE IT'S FACILITATING"...

Believe all the bad and believe the pictures. I think a child built this. Most likely child labor over seas somewhere. The quality is straight up BAD!But it's a start and a pattern to build yourself a larger one. The nest cavity is too small for any of the 1 nests I have relocated.

This is considerably cheaper than any other bumble bee nest available to purchase and, to be honest, this is seriously reflected in the construction quality! If you don't mind a bit of a DIY fix up job, then this is an OK purchase which after some TLC should work fine. On receipt however, it has several issues....1) The base on mine was warped along the length of the nest, so there were 3-5mm gaps between the base and walls at either end. Easily fixed with some wood glue and a few small screws (or nails). If you use screws, suggest you pre-drill the holes to avoid the wood splitting (it isn't very thick)2) The roof is very poorly fitting - with large gaps (> 5mm) between the roof and nest body pretty much most of the way around. I sorted this with some self-adhesive strip draft excluder (like you'd use to insulate a window) and it seems fine.3) There are small air holes in the right hand wall and on the inside the manufacturer has stapled a fine mesh over these, presumably to stop ants or other crawling insects gaining access. What a joke! The mesh wasn't flush to the wall (cause it only has a couple of staples in the centre) so any insect could easily crawl through and out the other side. Then of course there's the irony of even including this mesh with all the various gaps the nest arrives with! So out came the glue gun and I sealed the mesh down on all four sides.So, now all in order! Research around bumble bee boxes suggests it needs to be pretty free of draughts / gaps and needs to limit access of pests / predators - it certainly wasn't that on receipt! Looking at the Amazon.com reviews it seems the sloppy construction is fairly universal with this product and most people aren't impressed ... so just be aware before you buy....

This bee house arrived well packed pity it was NOT well made. I did read the reviews and wrongly assumed that the seller would have improved on the standard, but it has not. The bee house seem to be made of sturdy wood but constructed badly. As the roof could not close because if was badly made, the metal on the roof had to be removed so the wood on the underneath could be bought into an alinement with each other. Then the wood at the side had to be shaved down to fit under the roof, and of course it then had to be reassembled, if I did not have someone who knew what to do I would have returned it. DO NOT PURCHASE THIS IF YOU ARE NOT DIY OR HAVE SOMEONE WHO IS because this seller seem to regularly send faulty bee houses out.

I would agree with some reviews, the top doesnt fit flush which is supposed to be important for bumble nests. However that said the one i had looked good, gaps were small and look sturdy. Very happy wife as given as xmas present.

I love this box, couldnt believe how lovely it is after reading some of the reviews , mines is well made , no complaints whatsoever.

As this was a present for someone else and I have never seen the product I can only write a neutral report