Bumblebee behaviour

Blue Bee : **LINK**

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/blue-bee-feared-be-extinct-found-florida-180974957/

MichaelG.

Earlier this morning masses of bees came out their nest in the wall of my shed, thousands of them, all flying in an area about 10-15m across. The noise was tremendous. Tried to film a video of them but they did not come out well against the background, the little flying bees seemed so indistinct. Can only assume it might have been a queen out flying for her nuptials, maybe a new queen? Not up on these things! Something was exciting them but, obviously.

Now an hour later, all is quiet again, with 4 perhaps 6 only bees buzzing around the entrance.  Calmness reigns again!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 31/05/2020 11:53:03

It would now appear that the queen - old, new? - and a mob of bees have made off and are now hanging in a tree behind my neighbours garden. Hope they find somewhere safe. I presume that another queen has stayed behind in the nest as there are still a limited number of bees hanging around the entrance, but only a few.

The swarm hanging off a branch - its the downward pointed cone thingy in roughly the middle of the picture.  The nest entrance is rounghly in a line directly under the swarm, between the roof timber and the top of the wall

Close up of the swarm

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 31/05/2020 13:59:49

A good looking swarm, what happens is that the old Queen(Now in that swarm) has left the hive and the hive now has several Queen cells. On ef these cells will hatch out and that Queen will kill the remaining cells and queens. Then, the new Queen will go out to mate a few times and the whole hive cycle will start again for next year. It seems you are the owner of a Bee home.

Now, if you want to keep having them in your shed wall OK but getting rid is hard. You can elimanate them by burning some sulphur smake into the cavity they are in. SAfter you can get into the cavity and remove the combs and honey.

Press the honey thro. ladies tights and bottle.

Extra, it is possible that the next Queen may lead aanother swarm out and so on until the bees are all gone. This does happen sometimes. Have you called anyone to collect the bees?

No Clive, not called anyone yet - who do we call? or will the bees just go off somewhere?

The problem is, to get to where the bee home is in the wall/roof is a matter of destruction. The wall does not have a cavity. The outbuilding is a very old (mid-late Victorian) and is constructed of a 2ft thick wall of mud and stone lumps with render on the inside and mortar on the outside. The roof boards have opened up a little (dried out I guess) to leave a small gap between the boards just big enough for the bees to crawl in.

I was thinking of just waiting for the winter and then sealing up the entrance. Where do you get sulphur smoke from? Had heard the petrol fumes kills them instantly too. Don't really want to kill them but neither do I really want them in the wall/roof of my shed! At least whatever happens aat least one mob has got away to start over again.

Chris