To bee or not to bee? That is the question.

Augusta08

Augusta08

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With all this time on my hands , decided to clear out the garden shed. Then noticed insect activity outside. There's a bee colony living under my shed floor. They were obviously a bit put out with my rummaging around, but I got the job done and they've settled down to business as usual.
Bee-ing a bit of an eco-friendly type I'm inclined to let them bee. However are there any downsides to that strategy?
 
Hi.
" What would you rather Bee or a........ Wasp ? "
Tea Bag
Old mates saying.Mark Rankin RIP

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Do yourself a favour and make a Bee Hotel for one of the 260 odd species of solitary bees. Easy to make and it will provide hours of fun on a sunny day watching them going about their daily lives.
 
Augusta08 said:
With all this time on my hands , decided to clear out the garden shed. Then noticed insect activity outside. There's a bee colony living under my shed floor. They were obviously a bit put out with my rummaging around, but I got the job done and they've settled down to business as usual.
Bee-ing a bit of an eco-friendly type I'm inclined to let them bee. However are there any downsides to that strategy?
Click to expand...
I ve had a reread and noticed the bit "Under the Shed".
Highly likely to be bumblebees then.
If they are Bumbles, then they live in a colony up to 500 and over winter in the ground.
They can get pretty active if their place of abode is upset (You walking into the shed) but a quick removal from the area is advisable and they might follow a bit but wont get all waspy in wanting to give you the benefit of their sting. Their sting is generally more painful than a honeybee.
Honeybees swarm and end up in a clump and really quite docile when swarming (swarming season is now) and a swarm will be anywhere from 30,000 (really big swarm) to a couple of thousand for a cast swarm. They tend to land on branch or on the eaves of a house or anywhere they can attach to and drop down whilst they look for permanent residence and thats when the beekeeper comes along to catch them and remove them to a nice house (hive)
In order catch the swarm, the beekeeper has to catch the Queen and all the others will follow her to whereever she goes.
There are videos on youtube where a swarm has say 10,000 bees in it. Shake the bees into a bucket and bung them into a carry hive and put the lid on. You might catch 5,000 of them including the Queen. The other 5,000 go back to where they were so you shake them into the bucket and put them just outside the carry hive on a white towel (so it is easier to video them) and then they all just march into the carry hive. Bleeding fascinating.

DBK
 
Some years ago my wife was weeding in the garden under the apple tree and above her head unbeknown to was a swarm of bees, she had not noticed the hum. I called a local bee keeper who came and took them away and he gave us a small pot of honey. Later I found that the cost of a new swarm of bees was much more valuable than a small pot of honey but they had gone to a good home.

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Tincataylor said:
Do yourself a favour and make a Bee Hotel for one of the 260 odd species of solitary bees. Easy to make and it will provide hours of fun on a sunny day watching them going about their daily lives.
Click to expand...

I have Wool Carder Bees in my insect hotel, but the ones under the shed are honey bees, there's about 1 going in or out every 15 seconds, so I doubt they are in their thousands... yet.
 
movan said:
My memory is lousy, and I get confused as I thought Solitary bees were called Lonely bees. It upset me for ages as I thought nobody wanted them in their hive.
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Don't be sad for solitary bees :)
There the bees that benefit most from insect hotels like in this pic:
SolitaryBeeNester.jpg

They don't make a hive but do their bit to pollinate our garden plants, wild plants & farmers' fields.
I've seen red mason bees and leaf cutter bees in our insect house.

The wasp nest in the bird feeder was an accident soon fixed ;)
 
Augusta08 said:
I have Wool Carder Bees in my insect hotel, but the ones under the shed are honey bees, there's about 1 going in or out every 15 seconds, so I doubt they are in their thousands... yet.
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On the presumption it is over 12 degrees over there and 4 bees per minute, they are not honeybees, even a small cast would bee much busier than that. Possibly mortar or masonry bees if you get them out there. Harmless.
 
We have had bees nesting in the house over the years. Never been a problem,just make children aware and keep dog away.

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We had bees in the roof in France. We lived with them for years, until honey started dripping through the ceiling. We arranged to have them moved, 3 men on the roof, I was in the garden watching. Guess who got badly stung. I’ve never been frightened of bees, but I’m a bit wary now.
 
Casper46 said:
We had bees in the roof in France. We lived with them for years, until honey started dripping through the ceiling. We arranged to have them moved, 3 men on the roof, I was in the garden watching. Guess who got badly stung. I’ve never been frightened of bees, but I’m a bit wary now.
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Honeybees only tend to get a tad upset when you mess with their home !
Did you get much honey out of it ?
It would have been really nice as they were obviously not sugar fed
 
suavecarve said:
Honeybees only tend to get a tad upset when you mess with their home !
Did you get much honey out of it ?
It would have been really nice as they were obviously not sugar fed
Click to expand...

We didn’t get anything other than stings. The men took away a large dustbin full of honeycomb.

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Casper46 said:
We didn’t get anything other than stings. The men took away a large dustbin full of honeycomb.
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A large dustbin of honeycomb or £400. Whichever way you like to look at it !!!

I always pass on a finders fee of a jar of honey later in the season. Its the etiquette
 
kevenh said:
Don't be sad for solitary bees :)
There the bees that benefit most from insect hotels like in this pic:
SolitaryBeeNester.jpg

They don't make a hive but do their bit to pollinate our garden plants, wild plants & farmers' fields.
I've seen red mason bees and leaf cutter bees in our insect house.

The wasp nest in the bird feeder was an accident soon fixed ;)
Click to expand...
Thats my next covid boredom task just getting some bits of bamboo together for it ?
 
I'd be more than happy to have them there, we had some bumble bee's under some insulation in our garage.
they never harmed me & I never harmed them.
Was lovely sitting outside watching them go about their business & they need all the help we can give them.

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Hard to definitively identify bees by sight. When a queen gets out of the nest (usually prevented by keeping the exit smaller than she is) she will breed with anything she takes a fancy to whilst airborne. When I managed some beekeepers (about 40 hives) they would need to get the microscope and scalpel out to identify any infiltrating “mutations”
They were keen to preserve the purity of the British black honey bee as far as I recall.
Good advice to talk to a beekeeper group or member. They are quite obsessive but friendly and helpful.
 
There are numerous species of bees and wasps and many different ways they live. As already suggested if they are living in a colony under a shed they might well be bumble bees but without a photograph it isn't possible to be sure. However, unless they are honey bees the colony will die out at the end of the year. Only honey bees overwinter en masse, with all other species of bee or wasp only the queens survive the winter by hibernating.

If they aren't bothering anyone then as the OP has done they are best left alone. :) They were here before us and will probably outlive us - if we don't kill them first. :(

Quick pub quiz question.

Q. What's the difference between bees and wasps?
A. Bees are vegetarian, wasps are carnivorous.

Wasps came first, bees came later with the arrival of flowering plants.
 
DBK ... as MHF resident bee expert ... every May time we have vast numbers of bees on our roof ... our neighbour a mile away has similar ... they stay for a few weeks then disappear ... they particularly like sunny days ... any ideas?
 
Grianan said:
DBK ... as MHF resident bee expert ... every May time we have vast numbers of bees on our roof ... our neighbour a mile away has similar ... they stay for a few weeks then disappear ... they particularly like sunny days ... any ideas?
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I'm stumped. It is possible they may have found somewhere warm they can use to get up to flying temperature. Odd.
 
DBK said:
I'm stumped. It is possible they may have found somewhere warm they can use to get up to flying temperature. Odd.
Click to expand...

... s friend thought it might be a ‘meeting place’. They leave pollen in the cracks around the velux windowframe ...

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