Invasive bees?

[beebumble]

Hello,

Joined this forum because I had a problem. Yesterday I found one after another honey bee in a conservatory. I started catching them in butterfly nets and putting them out. The doorway to the conservatory is hung with heavy duty anti-insect mesh, so I was puzzled. Only bees were appearing indoors, not wasps or flies.

When the bees get in the conservatory they die, especially in the summer heat, they can't get out.

When I stepped outside I noticed another bee buzzing all round the conservatory. I waved it away, this made no difference. In desperation I closed the sliding doors shut. Still it persisted, until it found a gap at the top of the sliding doors then crawled in. When I opened the doors to go back into the conservatory the bee was already inside. Off I go again with the butterfly net.

What is causing this please? There are no flowers or sweet substances in the conservatory, it is bare apart from wretched spider's webbing above head height - impossible to be rid of the arachnids because the roof design tapers up into a cone - spider housing estate.

But what is drawing the bees into the conservatory? They don't venture beyond it into the front room.

Several years ago someone kept bees over the fields somewhere, but that folded. I did a web search (Fordingbridge) and there is no trace of bee keeping local to me now. The conservatory is white you see, I wondered if the bees were mistaking it for their hive?

Are the bees drunk? There is a large, highly scented and flowering ornamental thorn tree [Crataegus macracantha] close by, buzzing with bees, are they confused and intoxicated?

Help please.

Thanks,

BB

 

[La Folie]

Is your conservatory constructed on what was an old external wall perhaps, because I have a friend who has a conservatory built onto the walls of his old farm house and it has lots of miner bee holes in the cement. Possibly your bees are not honey bees at all? It is possible that the bees are attracted to the plants in the conservatory. However, I would think leaving the door open and allowing them easy access might be the best solution.

 

[beebumble]

arachnids

Is your conservatory constructed on what was an old external wall perhaps, because I have a friend who has a conservatory built onto the walls of his old farm house and it has lots of miner bee holes in the cement. Possibly your bees are not honey bees at all? It is possible that the bees are attracted to the plants in the conservatory. However, I would think leaving the door open and allowing them easy access might be the best solution.

This is the first instance of exclusively bees in the conservatory. There is nothing in the conservatory except spiders which eventually catch and eat the bees, not very bee-friendly are arachnids. I am doing everything in my power to preserve these bees.

The bees are attracted to the blossoming thorn tree outside - which has almost thank goodness, finished blossoming, so presumably they are honey bees - they carry pollen sacks on their legs.

Apparently there were pig farms here before the houses were built 30-40 years ago, unlikely to be very substantial building work from what I have seen of pig farms - no trace today.

Someone suggested spraying the conservatory entrance with vinegar, I did this earlier today. No bees. Couple of hours ago I noticed a lone bee diving again and again towards the conservatory glass roof, so I think without the vinegar I'd have another porch full of exhausted, dying bees getting tangled up in spiders' webs. I don't want this.

Any other logical reason why the bees want to come in please - they don't try to get in anywhere else, doors or windows, just the porch conservatory.

Oh, I repeat, the conservatory is white - it probably looks like an artificial hive to the bees.

Many thanks.

 

[Davelin]

No idea what is attracting them in however:

Hardly anyone uses white WBC hives these days, and the bees navigation skills guide it very accurately back to its own hive.

There must be someone with bees or, less likely, a colony of wild bees fairly close to you otherwise they wouldn't be there.

 

[beebumble]

thanks yet bizarre

Thanks Davelin,

Another of my theories bites the dust. This incident is utterly bizarre then :-o And what about the bees being intoxicated from something unknown nearby, might that induce erratic behaviour please?

BB

 

[wessexmario]

As it's swarm season, the bees coming in could be scouts looking for a new home for a colony.

They find what appears to be a small entrance somewhere, and want to investigate if the interior would make a suitable new home, but once they get into the glazed sunlit conservatory they can't find their way out.