BEES BEES and more honey BEES.
Currently doing a small reno, replace fascia and eaves, ran into a situation with bees in the exterior wall (entering through a knot hole in the cedar siding). Evidently, they don’t like the sound of hammering… what’s with that?
Anyone know how to get rid of them without killing them. The woman has a large garden and is adamant about not killing them as they pollinate her garden.
Alex
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Replies
Contact your local hive inspector. He would probably know of a local bee keeper. Usually a honey producer will come out and get the honey bees for his own hives. A free swarm is desirable.
Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
Thanks, I guess that beats using the shop vac.
Alex
You really have only 1 choice -- remove part of the siding and dig out the nest.
Yes, a swarm is desirable... but this isn't a swarm. A swarm of honeybees is the result of the colony abandoning their hive in search of something better. Their disposition is very gentle for 2 reasons: a) before swarming, the bees gorge themselves on honey so they can start bulding new comb immediately on arrival, and a full bee is a happy bee; and b) their instinct is to avoid trouble so that the maximum number of bees are available for comb building; a bee dies after stinging, so a swarming bee doesn't want to sting you.
What you have is an established colony. They will not move on willingly. You can build a one-way exit door so that the bees which leave cannot return, and eventually you'll get most of them out. Note that this can take up to 3 weeks while any eggs hatch out. Unfortunately, at this point you'll still have the wax comb full of honey and pollen in the wall. Without bees to ventilate the hive the wax will melt and soak into the wood, the honey will attract ants, and you now have a major mess.
Your choices are dig them out or live with it.
On a large remodel project years ago, we unwittingly covered a hive opening and a couple years later, the client called me back about a glue-like substance dripping down the walls from the upper level. Eventually we figured out what happened and had to open the plaster walls and remove the mess - it was pretty gross.
It's good advice to deal with it now.
Kill the bees and buy her a bag of fertilizer.
Just tell her ya packed them up and let them go live with yer uncle that has a big happy farm. Jeff.......Sometimes on the toll road of life.....a handful of change is good.......
Ask around or look in the yellow pages for a bee keeper. If your lucky you might find one with a sense of adventure and humor that will work with you.
He/She should be able to calm the bees with smoke, could be that type or maybe not, to allow you to pry away any claps in the way. He will need access to the core of the hive. He or she might be able to grab and box the queen. Once the queen is removed from the hive, if I understand bee behavior, the remaining bees should follow the queen and be removable as a large mass.
Bee keepers have special outfits and equipment to make this job easier. I once watched a bee keeper work and found it quite interesting. From what the guy told me he doesn't get stung as much as one might expect. Let us know how things work out.
Last weekend, as I walked thru a room in my house I heard scratching sounds and low hum/buzz from ceiling below the attic. Put my ear to ceiling and really heard a buzz, like a small engine. Looked in attic, and that area was literally crawling and moving like in those nature shows. YELLOW JACKETS! They had intertwined with the insulation. The main hive was as large around as a standard garbage can lid and a few inches thick.
Didnt want to relocate them. So I bought a bunch of WASP SPRAY (kind that shoots 20 feet away), YARD GUARD spray foggers, and some bug bombs. Put on long sleeves and canister type respirator mask and went to work. Had two hands going at once. Set off four bug bombs in attic. Used a hoe to upturn and spray more. Next night I went back and scooped up the mess, double-bagged it insualtion and all. Still had a few alive so more spraying.
Never saw so many at once. Usually see golfball sized nests or lemon sized at best along the eaves or under the roof rake. These guys they entered the attic in a small space at the soffit.
After cleanup, I noticed that the critters scratched/ate into the drywall from the attic side. They ate thru more than 3/8" of the half inch. Woulda not been fun coming home to a room full of yellow jacket wasps.
I dont have a solution to your bee relocation desires. Just wanted to share what I found! Still amazed about it.
Would have been a real surprise to be listening with your ear to the drywall at the exact same time as the bees finally 'break thru to the other side'. Great story:)Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
That very thought hit me when I saw the "pit" in the drywall topside. Seriously, every friggin buzz sound around the house has me on edge thinking there's more! Lawn mowers down the street to the jetskis on the bay.
And with the lack of rainfall around here (Long Island) the wasps are more agressive lookin for drinking water. I will start wearing my DeWalt holster 24/7 with a can of wasp spray in it!
Phil
Brother is a inspector/bee keeper and just told me you have to physically remove the bees and seal it up. Unless she wants the trouble of setting up a hive to locate them in that's it. There are bee traps that let them exit and not get back in but complicated and always some that stay inside.
Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
hey dude, nuke those mother ####er's.
no turn left unstoned
I spent a number of years as a beekeeper. I love bees.
Red- Unfortunately, time and logistics often mean poisoning these wonderful critters when they get in our way. Personally, in a few instances I have allowed bees to remain in walls where the entrance to the bee colony was such that people were not likely to be stung. But, as others have said here, the only way to remove a bee colony is to open up the wall and physically relocate the queen, brood, and all (or most, if possible) of the honeycomb to an empty hive box brought to the site for this purpose. I've even done it with a big cardboard box when I didn't have an empty hive. Without going into any of the (facinating) details, you can take it all home that night- as long as you go at least 6-8 miles away.
Anyway, hopefully anyone who has this problem will be able to find a beekeeper who will want to remove the colony- bees as pollinators are a key component to life as we know it. The last number of years have seen a marked increase in colony losses due to parasitic mites. Anything we can do to keep honeybees going is a good thing.
Sorry about the rant, but as I said, I love honeybees.
OK, I'll get down off this box, now.
Ken Hill
Rant? What rant?
Your post seems apt, to the point and entirely appropriate to the situation. IMHO you should keep doing what your doing.
We've had bumble bees going in/out of a small crack under my concrete front porch for 2 years now (I thought the winter would get them, but some obviously survived). There sure don't seem to be many, can they just be left there ?.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Ken- I'm no beeman, but it seems to me that the bumblebee by nature is a fairly docile creature unless provoked (stepped on and such) When painting farmhouses in the past I have had opportunity to work alongside those buddies right by their nests in the walls. I've found that I can successfully paint up to and right around their nests by using a fully loaded brush to eliminate repeat strokes and very slow deliberate movements. Never been stung there but always fully aware of the potential. Most people I meet seem to have an inordinate fear of the bees.I don't know if they are swatting in air or waving to them. As to Phil's question I would think to leave them alone as they are in minority status unless someone in the household has an allergic reaction to the sting.
Now white faced hornets... that's another breed of animal. Whoa!Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
folks, folks, FOLKS,....
look, this "protect the bee stuff", yeah, o.k. thats cool, but, when I'm trying to work, well it's them or me, especially if I'm up on a roof and/or got one leg on a ladder rung, and the other on a tree branch or something, that's the way it is. Besides, get used to swattin the little ####'s, sooner or later they is all gonna be Africanized.no turn left unstoned
I'm sure I've read somewhere that the best defence against the incursion of the african bee would be the expansion of the native species populations.
True ? Not true ?.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Hi, Phil-
Yes, the bumble bee is very docile, indeed, and will only sting when swatted or stepped on. They are quite benign. Bumble bees and honey bees can be handled gently with no ill effects in the field, altho they are usually so determined going about their business gathering nectar and pollen that they won't stay for long. They won't sting in the field because they are not protecting their home and their purpose is single minded.
Panama-
You are right. Sometimes there is just no way to work around a bee colony without raising their ire, and to bee productive and get our work done the little buggers just gotta go. Bees indeed become agressive when their home is disturbed, especially if someone is hitting the wall with a hammer. Of course this is what they do by nature, and is why they have survived for millions of years. I still feel badly whenever I have to kill a creature because it is "in my way." That's just the way I feel, somewhat of a steward of the natural world- which, when it comes down to it, is a lot bigger and more important than me.
As far as allergic reations to bee venom goes, yes, a person's health is a precedent over the bee's. Obviously. Fortunately, not everyone is severely affected by stings, although EVERYONE is sensitive to one degree or another. And the funny thing about it is that you can go many years without much of a reaction and then all of a sudden it can become life threatening. There is no way to predict. It's a weird deal.
The Africanized honeybee was an attempt to develop superior honey and pollen production. Unfortunately, these superior attributes also included heightened agressiveness against threats to colonies, and a propensity to overtake native colonies with their own genetic superiority. Things got out of control and the dominant Africanized genes have spread, especially into North America. This has been a threat to native colonies and commercialized ones as well. This is not to say, though, that the Africanized genetic strain has not been diluted in it's journey Northward. The best thing that can be done to lessen the threat is to foster propagation of the gentler strains of the honeybee, such as the European variety, which has been a mainstay of the industry for many years, being a very good producer. So, the key would be dilution of the Africanized gene pool, and it will depend largely on the commercial bee outfits and queen breeders.
Ken Hill
We've had a lot of "paper wasps" around the neighbourhood, and I have been knocking down their nests as they can get agressive. But I don't mind having the bumblers around so long as they don't do a lot of damage (which was sort-of where I was going with my question - are they benign ?). .
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Phil- I think Ken would be a better source of data than I regarding the 'benign'. However I think they can eat thru goodly amounts of wood and if they get into an area hard to get to their nests can carry a fairly unpleasant odor as time goes by. I took on the total renovation of my grandparent's old farmhouse and when demoing the plaster lathe found old bumble bee nests over a couple of the tops of the widows between the studs. Their odor wasn't particularly foul but not necessarily pleasant. Now I know why grandpa house always had that certain smell when growing up:)Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.