I get a moderate amount of bees, but wouldn't mind a colony if it didn't get too far out of control. Would a bee box get used potentially? Is there any other thing I can make as a potential bee house for ANY bee species in Florida? Apparently most kinds of bumble bees just make holes in the dirt as a house?
Gary, Your personal motivation for having bees around your house is unclear to me. Normally people don't want bees too close to their home. Without a better understanding as to why you are trying to attract bees it's difficult to answer your questions. For your question #1): maybe but it's doubtful; for question #2): if you mean for the one "thing" to handle multiple bee species, then the answer is no; for question #3): for Bombus, it's common.
Well I guess I found my own answer, while watching 'Victory Garden' a lady discussed attracting wildlife to gardens, and bees were mentioned. Bought her book, 'A blessing of toads', about such things.
Wildflowers native to your area are best especially for native bees, you can often find mixes in hardware stores. I hate to recommend a non-native but as I work in plant nurseries and if I WAS going to recommend one that honey bees seem to adore it would be lavender (sp. Lavendula). Maybe this is because the native home for both (lavender and honey bee) is the same general landmass. Perhaps they evolved together.
The same goes for rosemary and honeysuckles. Honeybees love 'em. So I guess a good way to attract honeybees is to find aromatic plants that are also native to the same European/Mediterranean region that honeybees come from (though those places are also suffering CCD).
In most states it is against the law to maintain bees in anything that does not have moveable combs to facilitate inspections. I'm pretty sure this is true in Florida. Why not just get a standard hive body and frames?
