Bees, slightly OT

Only OT as it is definitely not a DiY job!!

I've had honey bees living inside a flat roof above a bedroom window for the last year. The time came that they had to go, there was a slight water leak in the roof and it didn't seem like a good idea to take the roof off with them still inside.

I had a chat with the local bee keepers association, Bedford, and they put a note out on their newsgroup with my details to see if anyone fancied a challenge, a guy called Andre offered his services and yesterday he came around to remove them.

It was an amazing operation, with surprisingly little damage to the ceiling, about an 18" square piece removed. What was truly amazing was the number of bees in there and the amount of honey comb that they had produced. Any way all now happily, well probably slightly miffed, in a temporary hive on top of the roof for today and away to a new home tonight.

If anyone in Beds or Herts has a bee issue I can thoroughly recommend this guy.

PS. The honey retrieved from them tastes a darn sight better than anything I've bought in any shop, so a plus point there too.

Reply to
Bill
Loading thread data ...

When I kept bees, used to be fairly regular request to collect swarms (natural spilt of hives annually) Usually cut the comb (if they have established one) let it drop into a cardboard box .... and then leave it and over a few minutes all the bees will migrate to the box .... a few puffs of smoke to calm them down, close lid of box and then you can safely transfer them by car or whatever to a waiting empty hive.

If a swarm has recently left a hive, typically they will settle on a tree - you can just hold empty box near them, and shake branch of tree the swarm will fall into box, once queen is in all will follow and stay with her. Their instinct is to find a 'hole' .... so easy enough to persuade them into a box.

Glad you took right decision ... a lot of people want to kill honey bees, they will not harm you unless threatened, they sting, they die. Same for big bumble bees ... now getting rare.

Wasps sting for fun.

Reply to
Rick Hughes

I've heard that for the last year or two, so far this year I've seen quite a few BIG bumble bees, mainly having to let them out through the transparent force field, or maybe it's the same one over and over again, are they solitary?

Reply to
Andy Burns

These guys had been well behaved tenants so it only seemed fair to find them a new home! :-) Plus my father was a beekeeper, so maybe some of the liking for them had rubbed off on me?

We have quite a few large bumbles around, at least one took up residence under the lounge floor somewhere, I noticed it coming and going through a broken air brick. But not seen any of the smaller ones for a few years here.

Wasps I will kill on sight, having had a few stings from them, 12 in one attack a few years ago, I am slightly biased against them!

Reply to
Bill

Though the Missus and I were in the garden last week and remarked that there seemed to be more around than this time last year including a reasonable number of the red tailed variety. Hopefully they are recovering a bit. We get a fair number of Honeybees as well but they come from a keeper about 300 yards away as the Bee flies and we look foward each year when he put some jars out in his porch with an honesty box. In fact some trees that fell in the Winter gales have revealed one of his hives is only about 100 yards away on the edge of his property with only a narrow field and chalk stream between us and the Hive. We do try and plant some things like heathers so there are some early things about for Bees to forage on.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

The big bumbles around at the moment are queens. Later on in early summer you'll see the workers and males, which are smaller.

If you do box-up a swarm of honeybees, leave it open until evening - there will be lots of scout bees off searching for a new home but they will return by dark. If you box and remove the main swarm before evening you'll have lots of confused bees around the next day.

Reply to
Reentrant

My "colony" of solitary mason bees have emerged over the part few weeks.

formatting link
formatting link

Reply to
alan

Thanks, as a beekeeper, for posting that Bill. It's an interesting story - I'm on the local fuzzes list as a collector of swarms and spend most of my time calming down psychotic women who don't know one end of a honey bee from a wasp or bumble bee.

Rob

Reply to
robgraham

In message , robgraham writes

Hi Rob,

I had a chat with a beekeeper, that I found on the local list of swarm collectors, when they first moved in and he wasn't very hopeful about getting them out, so when it became a necessity I contacted the local association and spread the need a bit more widely. I was very pleased with the result, in fact the guy came back this evening to collect the temporary hive, it was pouring with rain last night and for some reason he didn't fancy walking up the roof and fetching it down! Tonight it all went quite smoothly and all I have to do now is firstly keep an eye out in the bedroom, the little bu**ers are still appearing, 3 in the last hour, rather a lot fell into the room when he cut the ceiling down. Secondly I have a bit of plasterboarding to do. For some unknown reason, apart maybe from the fact my father was a beekeeper, it doesn't really bother me, just one of those things that happens and it's good to know that they have gone to a new home and can carry on about their business.

I find it surprising that people can't tell the difference between honey bees and wasps, what do they teach in schools these days? I can well imagine some of the calls that you get though :-)

This lot seemed remarkably docile, well for most of the time any way! The stragglers in the bedroom didn't seem too bothered, after spending ages getting them to walk on pieces of paper so that I could usher them out of the window I got fed up with that and just let them walk onto my hand and then put them out, they didn't seemed worried about it! Probably not the most sensible move and I wouldn't recommend it, but it worked in this instance. There again when he cut the ceiling down it was a different matter, I was well out of the way :-) He had the correct PPE, I didn't.

As a final note for the evening, while we were waiting for them to settle down before removing the hive we noticed a series of wasps going into another part of the roof, they are not going to be treated quite so politely. Very respectfully though, after having 12 wasp stings in one instance where I accidentally damaged a nest I keep well clear of them.

Reply to
Bill

Full instructions please.

They're currently living in holes they've drilled in a disused chimney. I don't want this to continue - enough holes might matter.

Andy

Reply to
Vir Campestris

Glad they're ok. The honey mine made last year was just amazing.

Reply to
mogga

Not solitary, but very few to a nest ... whereas a honey bee colony could be 60,000 bees ... bumble bees live in small nests. I encorage them in my garden by panting Bumble bee septic plants ....(borage etc.) many of the newer garden centre plants have nectar in places a bumble bee can't reach ...

Reply to
Rick Hughes

I got encourage and planting. But what was septic?

Andy

Reply to
Vir Campestris

Yesterday I was planting lavender (10, to flower from April to October) and a couple of rosemary. A honey bee settled on my hand, looked (i assume) at the lavender I was holding and flew off. Nice to see it.

The Natural History Museum used to have a Postcode plants database giving plants that are suitable for insects in an area, but it's now defunct due to cocerns about innacuracy.

Reply to
PeterC

?? as well:-)

I guess he means plants whose flowers provide nectar sources.

Scarlet runner bean plants are the opposite in that the nectar can't be reached. Small wild bees have overcome this by piercing the flower instead thus failing to distribute pollen and fertilise the plant.

Last Summer we had Bees coming for weeks to an unidentified (possibly Indian mint) plant in our border.

Reply to
Tim Lamb

shouldn't use my phone to reply ...

I encourage them in my garden by planting Bumble Bee specific plants ...

Reply to
Rick Hughes

Different bees if they are drilling holes

Mine are mason bees - they use mud to make compartments in reeds or holes drilled by OTHER insects. Even though they can sting they are very docile. They are solitary bees - no queen, no swarms, no honey etc.

In a tube they make a compartment from mud, lay an egg, pack the compartment with pollen then seal it with more mud. Each of my tubes has

5 or 6 such compartments. The bees develop June to March using the pollen as food and then emerge this time of year. The end compartment is usually the male which emerges first and then hangs around for some reason until the females emerge.

These bees are harmless and probably responsible for pollinating more plants than honey bees/bumble bees etc. They emerge just as my cherry tree flowers and I usually get a good crop.

Reply to
alan

The birds get all my cherries :-(

Reply to
harryagain

In message , Bill writes

If anyone is interested here is a write up from the guy that collected them.

Reply to
Bill

A few years ago, on holiday in East Anglia, we stopped at a set of traffic lights. There was a large flowering bush of some description (you can tell I'm not really a keen gardener) that had hundreds of bees buzzing around it. I wondered if it was a swarm, but a few days later saw the same thing with the same bush.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.