Attack of the killer bees! Ahhhh...

[j.o.s.h.1408]

i had bees above my cieling last summer, it was bad because there was a hole in the cieling and like 10 of them would come out during the night! what i done was to close all the holes in the cieling and outside and sprayed a wasp killer thingy. job done and kept the bees away from me.

[kalniel]

LOL! Yes, that'd be good. I've got about 4 nesting boxes for Mason bees outside and they can make a right old din - mind you, that's several dozen of the busy little so-and-sos.

Nice - you must have some good flowers going as a result. It's quite funny when they try and get a piece of leaf that's just too big to fit in the hole too

[pollaxe]

Definitely - we've got a lot of fruit trees and horse chestnuts and they go mad for them when they blossom - we've also got a lot of tunnels in the banks around us, even though there's a number of ready made 'des res' for them.

Unfortunately, the nests also attract parasitic flies and wasps but they've got to live too, I suppose.

[Steven W]

I'll laugh if it's just a lone mason bee whose buzz was just amplified by the pipe

Also I think it's not fair to blame you Steve - if you don't know then you don't know. I guess I'm more annoyed that the council were so useless - they should have provided you with the local BKA numbers at least.

That will be really embarassing

[sammyc]

I regularly pick up knackered bees and revive them with weak sugar water and I've never been stung...

I do this as well, it's kind of gratifying, isn't it though I actually use honey, is sugar water better?

nice goat by the way.

[kalniel]

I do this as well, it's kind of gratifying, isn't it though I actually use honey, is sugar water better?

Both the same.

[pollaxe]

Nice to know there's a fellow nutter out there Sammy! It is very pleasing, isn't it?

As Kalniel says, both should be fine. I tend to use sugar as I can dilute it that much more than honey and it's usually easier to get hold of. I know with butterflies and moths that if you give them too rich a mix of sugar in the water it can crystalise in their mouthparts so I always go with a fairly weak mix, just in case.

Honeybees, queen wasps and hornets are usually fairly easy to get drinking but bumblebees are harder in my experience.

[sammyc]

Thanks both I'll apply the advice to the next 'patient'.

[Clunk]

Candyman

Candyman

Candyman

Candyman

Candym....

[neonplanet40]

Hope you get it sorted by the local association soon mate

[kalniel]

Should I be glad that all I see of clunks post is a white box with a red cross in it?

[Clunk]

Fixed

[Blackmage]

Fixed

Clunk you should be a comedian.

[sammyc]

As it happens, my local paper has arrived this afternoon with this as a front page story - just thought I'd put a link here, & will get onto posting a response & a letter to the council.

p.s. Another handy link for future reference: http://www.britishbee.org.uk/swarm_help.php

[Steven W]

I've got good news and bad news.

Good news - bees have gone.

Bad news - most of them are lying dead down the side of the house and in the tube.

No phone call back from the association, so I phoned around a couple of other pest controllers to ask their advice. They said that beekeepers would only be interested if they were honey bees anyway. In truth I had no idea if they were or not, although the workers told me they thought they were bumblebees, all I knew was they had to go today as work is commencing there in the morning.

I paid £120 to have them fumigated and the guy confirmed they were bumblebees. He reckoned there were about 100 in there and they were actually flying around at the back of my cupboard when he moved the pipe.

A lot of them came out of the outlet at the side of the house and then sort of fainted. It was quite sad, because some bees were returning only to find that their house had been massacred.

I feel bad, but it had to be done.

Also, while he was here, I asked him to get rid of a wasp nest in the garden, something the council were going to charge me £45 to do. He sprayed it with a chemical. It took about 30 seconds to do it. He accidently left his spray can behind, almost full.

If anyone ever has a wasp nest, don't waste your money with pest control, buy some of this

http://www.ratbait.co.uk/index.asp?f...FQ86EAodgF6psw

Or, I charge £30 to come round and sort it out for you.

[pollaxe]

That's really sad news.

Bumblebees are amongst the most threatened species we have. They can sting multiple times (unlike honey bees who die after they sting) but British bumblebees are well known for their reluctance to sting (only if they're mishandled or the nest is threatened, it's quite rare for them to do so.)

It's a real shame it couldn't have been blocked off so they couldn't get into the house but could still get to the outside somehow but obviously that wasn't an option.

Bugger.