I moved my Bumble Bee Queens and their hives outside and opened their entrances yesterday. I put cat hair in with the queens to give them some insulation material and set the thermometer to 85F. The hives are also completely dark inside. Since the queens were not making any progress being held captive for 1 week I figured I would experiment with giving them the option to exit my hive and ideally return.
That wasn’t much of a success either. My Bombus Vagans queen quickly flew off to parts unknown and didn’t come back. That leaves me with 2 Bombus Impatiens queens. They haven’t flown away yet, but that might just be due to our crappy weather (cloudy, cold, sprinkles, low 40s)
A nice cozy insulated hive with food, fur, and 85F seems more appealing to me that living in a cold wet mouse hole, but I’m not a bee.