Not strictly a beekeeping question.

beveragelady

If this is the wrong place let me know and I'll ask a mod to move it.

How do I gently encourage bees to move away from my house without harming them?

I have nearly four acres behind the house that I'm planting with native deciduous trees to encourage biodiversity. There is at least one bees nest (can you call it a hive if it's just a hole in the ground?) up there, and that's no problem as long as I avoid them. In the past the dogs or I have accidentally disturbed them and they have attacked. I can have a severe reaction to beestings so I'm keen to avoid getting stung.

The problem is that I've spotted a very active nest very close to the house, less than ten feet from the bathroom window and the back door. It's also very close to my bedroom window. There's a steep bank that's quite overgrown and they've settled there. Apart from my own fears of getting stung, there's a difficulty with their chosen location in that that's the fenced-off area the dogs have access to during the day when I'm at work. One of my dogs has a neurotic fear of anything that buzzes. He has been refusing to go out there for a while and now I know why. The thing is I'm going back to work next week after the summer holidays and I need to be able to let the dogs out there as the only alternative is to lock them in the house.

They're not honey bees, I used to have a hive and I'd recognise them. They're small bumble bees of some sort. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

brianmc

beveragelady wrote: »

If this is the wrong place let me know and I'll ask a mod to move it.

How do I gently encourage bees to move away from my house without harming them?

I have nearly four acres behind the house that I'm planting with native deciduous trees to encourage biodiversity. There is at least one bees nest (can you call it a hive if it's just a hole in the ground?) up there, and that's no problem as long as I avoid them. In the past the dogs or I have accidentally disturbed them and they have attacked. I can have a severe reaction to beestings so I'm keen to avoid getting stung.

The problem is that I've spotted a very active nest very close to the house, less than ten feet from the bathroom window and the back door. It's also very close to my bedroom window. There's a steep bank that's quite overgrown and they've settled there. Apart from my own fears of getting stung, there's a difficulty with their chosen location in that that's the fenced-off area the dogs have access to during the day when I'm at work. One of my dogs has a neurotic fear of anything that buzzes. He has been refusing to go out there for a while and now I know why. The thing is I'm going back to work next week after the summer holidays and I need to be able to let the dogs out there as the only alternative is to lock them in the house.

They're not honey bees, I used to have a hive and I'd recognise them. They're small bumble bees of some sort. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

I don't really have any ideas about how you might discourage bees from nesting within an area but I just wanted to point out that bumble bee colonies will start to shrink back and disappear within the next month or two.

They don't maintain a colony over winter like honeybees. Individual queens will find places to hibernate for the winter and then start all over again in Spring.

beveragelady

brianmc wrote: »

I don't really have any ideas about how you might discourage bees from nesting within an area but I just wanted to point out that bumble bee colonies will start to shrink back and disappear within the next month or two.

They don't maintain a colony over winter like honeybees. Individual queens will find places to hibernate for the winter and then start all over again in Spring.

Thanks, that's quite encouraging. Maybe if I cut the vegetation back during the winter it won't be such an inviting spot next spring.

This is the problem with supporting biodiversity, I suppose!

yosemitesam1

Could you put out a few bee nest boxes in the area and move any that become occupied to a different area?

bpmurray

They sound like wasps - bumblebees are very docile indeed so your use of the word "attack" comes as a bit of a surprise.

• Bumblebees are stubby creatures, round blobs who don't look like they should be able to fly at all.
• Then there are honeybees and, while they can nest in the ground, it is extremely rare indeed - they go for spots higher up normally. These are slimmer creatures and generally a dark brown, although they may have a few lighter bands on them, depending on the breed. The honeybee can sting but they die after stinging because the stinger is barbed and rips their innards out, i.e. 1 bee, 1 sting. Their sting is rather like a bad nettle sting - after 10 minutes it's more about itchiness than pain.
• Finally we have the wasp, not all bad despite the press - they eat aphids and the like in the spring & early summer, but they turn into real party poopers at this time of year. They have a shape very like that of honeybees, but they are bright yellow with black stripes - difficult to miss really. They will build a paper nest in a bush or a tree, or underground. These can sting repeatedly and hurt like hell and, in my case at least, take ages to completely heal.

Here's a page with a good comparison picture.

beveragelady

bpmurray wrote: »

They sound like wasps - bumblebees are very docile indeed so your use of the word "attack" comes as a bit of a surprise.

• Bumblebees are stubby creatures, round blobs who don't look like they should be able to fly at all.
• Then there are honeybees and, while they can nest in the ground, it is extremely rare indeed - they go for spots higher up normally. These are slimmer creatures and generally a dark brown, although they may have a few lighter bands on them, depending on the breed. The honeybee can sting but they die after stinging because the stinger is barbed and rips their innards out, i.e. 1 bee, 1 sting. Their sting is rather like a bad nettle sting - after 10 minutes it's more about itchiness than pain.
• Finally we have the wasp, not all bad despite the press - they eat aphids and the like in the spring & early summer, but they turn into real party poopers at this time of year. They have a shape very like that of honeybees, but they are bright yellow with black stripes - difficult to miss really. They will build a paper nest in a bush or a tree, or underground. These can sting repeatedly and hurt like hell and, in my case at least, take ages to completely heal.

Here's a page with a good comparison picture.

There are something like twenty species of small bumble bee in Ireland. Some of them could easily be mistaken in flight for a honey bee but not these ones. I'm not sure which ones I have but they're not the lovely bright big fluffy bumble bees (great yellow bumble bee), they are smaller and less eyecatching. I think they're probably pratorum, the early bumble bee. As I said in my OP I had a hive of honey bees until recently so I'm well able to identify those too. I'm very familiar with wasps as well, they're definitely not wasps.

The nest further up the hill wasdisturbed when a dog tried to dig the whole thing up. (Obviously not my fearful fella, another dog.) They emerged buzzing loudly and I ran like the clappers with them behind me for about 50 metres. I got away without injury but a dog was stung at least once. I'm calling it an attack even though it was clearly a defensive manouevre on the part of the bees. Those bees are fine, I can just work around them, but the ones close to the house are a problem.

bpmurray

beveragelady wrote: »

There are something like twenty species of small bumble bee in Ireland. Some of them could easily be mistaken in flight for a honey bee but not these ones. I'm not sure which ones I have but they're not the lovely bright big fluffy bumble bees (great yellow bumble bee), they are smaller and less eyecatching. I think they're probably pratorum, the early bumble bee. As I said in my OP I had a hive of honey bees until recently so I'm well able to identify those too. I'm very familiar with wasps as well, they're definitely not wasps.

The nest further up the hill wasdisturbed when a dog tried to dig the whole thing up. (Obviously not my fearful fella, another dog.) They emerged buzzing loudly and I ran like the clappers with them behind me for about 50 metres. I got away without injury but a dog was stung at least once. I'm calling it an attack even though it was clearly a defensive manouevre on the part of the bees. Those bees are fine, I can just work around them, but the ones close to the house are a problem.

Apologies - I stand corrected. You're probably best leaving them - as brianmc said, the nest will die off over the next couple of months. I believe they often take over an old mouse's nest in the spring, so if you can find any near the house, you should remove them.