Bee's in an old wall - lime morter

[Hydrogen]

I have not chosen to be a bee keeper, but unfortunatly the bee's seem to have chosen me. There appears to be no hive as such, but without rippng the wall down its difficult to tell how many tunnels they have ???

Every year they come back in the spring and spend all summer either covering themselves in morter dust, laden with pollen on their legs or not, it doesnt seem to mke any difference. some times the wall and surrounding cloud of bee's is very busy (especially on sunny days) other times they just appear to be haveing en-mass dust bath's in the lime morter ????

I dont mind them and they seem happy enough for me to enter the cloud of them and just stand and watch often landing on me for a bit - apart from one which has very slightly different markings and gets agertated when i hang the washing too near the wall.

Ive no idea what they are doing here, they arrived about three years ago, Ive also found very very lage bumble bee's buried about one to two inch's down in my soil in the flower beds and during the spring weeding then woke up and flew off - do bee's hibernate ???? and whats all the dust bathing and interest in my old wall all about - id realy appreciate some answers as I quite like bee's and dont know what im surposed to do but watch them. ??

 

[Frisbee]

They almost certainly won't be honey bees....more like masonry bees. They live a more solitary existence.....which I know flies in the face of the looking at lots of bees flying around you The fact that they don't sting you shows they are not honey bees.

You don't need to do anything about them apart from enjoy them being in your garden.

I don't know a great deal about solitary bees, but there are people on here who can give you more information, also you could try and Google solitary/masonry bees and see if you can identify them from the results. The bumble bee conservation trust also has a very good website.

Frisbee

ps......course, if you want to know more about honey bees with a view to possibly keeping a colony or two, then you are just in the right place There will also be a local BKA running courses for you to learn about them hands on.........

 

[Brian Bush]

Almost certainly masonary bees. My home area has buildings and walls built of Lime marl, Witchert (mud). the masonary bees love this and the walls are honeycombed with their holes. Interestingly a few years ago I rendered one such wall with the prescribed local, secret recipe, of lime morter. The bees soon made their holes through this. Bless them!!