Bees?

Context:

This guy landed on my shoulder and just walked around for a few minutes.

Southern Ontario Around 2:30pm in bright sun; 24 Celsius.

(S)he was loaded with pollen and the bands on their abdomen were white.

From a list of possible bees in Ontario, I have narrowed it down to the polyester bee, but if anyone can confirm, I'd appreciate it.

It's been pretty depressing seeing fewer pollinators around year after year, so this guy really made my day!

My bee journey will not start till next year(signed up for two queens and 2kg of bees), which is meh but also will give me time to prep the area and build/buy proper equitment. I just wanted to ask for input from anyone with experince in bee keeping and being... not flush with cash. As the title indicates I am somewhat handy at woodworking, I was wondering if it is worth/advized building my own hives from scatch. I enjoy the idea of having a veiwing port in the hive that can be covered when I am done creeping on the colony activity. I am sure I am not the first to build their own colony, links to good build guilds would be wonderful too.

Ps. Am I the only one who finds the measurement of worker bees weirdly hilarious, buying 1kg of bees at a time haha

I created 'bees?' because I could find a bee community on lemmy.ca. I habe a biology degree and an interest in social insects. I recently invested in a property thag has space for bees and am on the list tohave two starter colonies next summer. The property has shown signs of wild bees in the area the pear tree was flowering already and the entire tree was humming with honey bees. And while converting a storage shed into a chicken coop, I had many conversation is a few different bumble bees. Mostly on how the fiberglass was not a good place to make a home, especially the pile about to be disgarded. I wish to learn more about how to effectively keep bees in the canadian climate, collect honey/pollen/wax and share space with this wonderful little creatures. Thanks for stopping by, feel free to introduce yourself and why you like bees/or are here. Or just lurk either way you are welcome.