Bodged cut-out? advice please

[pbh4]

I was contacted by a friend who works in a small cafe about a bee problem and I could do with some advice please. A colony of honey bees had taken up residence about 3m from their cafe door. The entrance was an air-brick about 3m above ground level. The landlord got help from a beekeeper after the council and pest controllers refused to get involved (and told him honey bees are protected and it is illegal to kill them!). It seems that the BK removed a brick and took the bees. He reported that there was no queen (!?) and told the landlord that the remaining bees would disperse within a couple of days. Beyond this I have no details. I do not know whether any brood, comb, honey or even poison was left behind. The air brick has been "blocked" with a sheet of card held down with parcel tape.

My friend called because there have been hundreds of angry bees outside the shop door all day and they have had to close the business. I just had a look at 9pm and there was a fist-sized cluster above the airbrick with bees fanning at the edge of the tape. I was planning to spray the cluster with water, drop them in a cardboard box and take them more than 3 miles away (they would not let me kill them because they are protected!) but on close inspection it seems to me that there is a 1 bee-space tunnel along the mortar line giving them access to the old nest so it is not so simple as that.

I do not have the whole picture and only know 3rd hand what happened on Saturday but it appears to me that the BK had been a bit irresponsible not dealing with the flying bees. I also suspect it will be a lot longer than a couple of days before they cease to be a problem, especially if there is access to the old nest.

What should I advise my friend to do? Is there anything I can reasonably do to help?

Cheers,

Paul

 

[VEG]

get the bad beek back to sort his own mess out.

 

[Queens59]

If there was no Queen taken perhaps she is still there? It would explain why the bees are so angsty. Any way to jerry rig a hive with a one-way junction - so you end up with a Q- colony? Not ideal, but short of taking the wall down I can't think how you would control the situation...

 

[merylvingien]

This is some bodies business you are dealing with here.
I might offend some hardened beeks here, but the quickest course of action here is to spray those clustering bees with soapy water. They will die instantly. Then what is left inside should be treated and once all activity has ceased the entrance blocked.

Why some people think they can do miracles and get bees out of such futile positions is beyond me!

 

[Andre cardona]

id uses a bee vac on them

 

[tonybloke]

This is some bodies business you are dealing with here.
I might offend some hardened beeks here, but the quickest course of action here is to spray those clustering bees with soapy water. They will die instantly. Then what is left inside should be treated and once all activity has ceased the entrance blocked.

Why some people think they can do miracles and get bees out of such futile positions is beyond me!

well said

 

[The Cumbrian]

This is some bodies business you are dealing with here.
I might offend some hardened beeks here, but the quickest course of action here is to spray those clustering bees with soapy water. They will die instantly. Then what is left inside should be treated and once all activity has ceased the entrance blocked.

Why some people think they can do miracles and get bees out of such futile positions is beyond me!

This may be the best way forward but in the first post the OP says "they would not let me kill them". OK they may be wrongly informed but currently the owners of the business don't want the bees killed.

At least that is how I read it.

 

[rockdoc]

I'm afraid Meryl is right. Sometimes death is the only course left. However, as has been said, get the original bk back to sort his mess out. Did he get paid? if so did he have any insurance? As I've said in a previous post, I'm not going to tackle any more cut-outs unless accompanied by a pest control person with the right form of cover. To do otherwise is to open yourself up to grief.
I'm sorry for the bees, but it seems a soapy end is the only way out of this one.

 

[Queens59]

 

[merylvingien]

OK they may be wrongly informed but currently the owners of the business don't want the bees killed.

At least that is how I read it.

Thats not how i read it!

The business owners that had to shut up shop, were wrongly informed that honey bees are protected and cannot be destroyed. (Probably by an over enthusiastic beekeeper, who thought he knew best and could save the bees, yay!)
Now the shop is shut, a total mess that wasnt necessary.

I am fairly sure if the fella had said, look mate, i cant get them out of there, you need to have them dead. The result would be different.

 

[susbees]

id uses a bee vac on them

Bee vac, soapy water. With one of the excellent pest controllers I work with on standby. With more beekeepers these situations seem to be on the increase: vents, chimneys, sidings...

 

[AnotherNewBee]

"There was no queen".

Where? No queen in the colony? Or no queen found in what the original beek managed to collect?

Either way there's no real choice. It's a business and probably more than a few people's livelihoods. The bees have to go.

Regrettably, kill them. Replace the missing brick and point any other gaps they're using. The difficult part will be convincing them that the council and pest controllers were wrong.

 

[pbh4]

UPDATE:

I popped by this morning to see what was happening and I was given slightly different information about what happened over the weekend. According to the new (still 3rd hand!) information, the BK walked away. He did not want to get involved and no cut-out was attempted! It seems that the landlord's caretaker taped the card over the vent and put mesh over the internal air vents to stop the bees getting into the building.

It seems to me that his solution is not likely to work in the long term because the bees inside will survive longer than the card and tape arrangement on the outside.

So ... what is the best way to deal with bees in an air brick if a cut-out is not possible? Is it okay to just block them in and wait for the colony to die? How do you prevent next year's swarm moving in? It is obviously not okay to block up airbricks - they are there for a reason - but is it okay to put a bee-proof mesh on the outside?

Thanks for all the helpful comments so far,

Paul

 

[merylvingien]

You can get a special insect screen to go over air bricks. It has a plastic surround with wire mesh in the middle, and is screwed to the brickwork.

Something along the lines of this> http://www.pcspestcontrol.co.uk/prdDetails.php?prdID=47

Edit: i wouldnt block them in though.

 

[SixFooter]

How about a trap-out?