Help! Bee's moving in to my loft - what to do?

[claws]

Hi All,

Sorry for what maybe a load of incorrect terms in my following message - as you'll see I'm not a bee expert; but hope some of you that are maybe able to help me!

I have noticed a lot of bee activity in my back garden over the past month and they seemed to be going in & out of my roof through a hole in the bargeboards just under the guttering. There are so many now that the noise is very noticeable inside the house - right above the bed room; they are buzzing away all day & night.

Having just checked in the loft Ive lifted the newly fitted thick fibreglass insulation to find around 100 bees (rough guess) all packed in tightly under the insulation. I have not disturbed them any further before knowing what to do. The house is south facing and we regularly have wasp nests which I'm happy to kill off or leave as they tend to be small and up in the rafters rather than right above the ceiling / plasterboard.

I really don't want to kill these bees but do not know what else to do or who to contact - most information sites seem to be about extermination rather than removal...

Does any one have any suggestions that I can either do myself or call to have help me move these little guys on to somewhere they can be happy but not so noisy in my roof? I'm worried that if I leave them the size of the colony / nest will get much larger.

thanks in advance
Chris.

 

[oliver90owner]

100 bees? Is that all? In that case they are bumbles, not honey bees. Leave them alone and the nest will be deserted by late summer.

Honey bee colonies normally have tens of thosands of bees at this time of the year.

If they are honey bees (and you have not seen the nest), they have likely been there a long time and are about to swarm (reproduce).

 

[claws]

Thanks - they are Bumbles - yes. So I guess I don't have any worries about it getting too much worse.

Do they come back to the same location in the future? I'll probably block their access hole up once they are all gone later summer time.

 

[oliver90owner]

Do they come back to the same location in the future?

No, that nest is deserted. Doesn't mean there won't be another colony, another year, close by.

They are eusocial, the same as wasps. Queens only produced late in the season; they mate and later hibernate for the winter, and found new nests next spring.

RAB

 

[Travelator]

Two things to add:

- Different species of bumble bees start and finish nesting at different times of year. If you can identify them using the various guides available online, you might be able to get a better idea of how many months they will be around for.

- As o9o correctly said, that particualr colony will collapse at the end of the summer. But it is quite common for new colonies to reuse the same site in subsequent years, so definitely do clean out the debris and block the entrance once they've gone.