Where do you find wild beehives in the UK, apart from buildings?

[sainfoin]

OH and I are having an intense discussion about bees living wild as nature intended in the UK. I tend to the view that this is pretty unusual he feels they must be able to manage apart from world of men.
We spent hours yesterday trying to extricate a swarm that was determined to live in the wall of an old Cornish house via a desirable plastic pipe. Unfortunately the wife is very allergic to bees. The bees have settled overnight in four clumps and we could never get them all in one place - I can only presume the queen is in the pipe somewhere and they won't leave but they were backwards and forwards to several spots including hanging under the poly bait hive which they would not enter! All this took place well up ladders which fortunately were really good ones.
Advice would be very gratefully received.

 

[For want of a better word]

"Sinve the time of the reformation when all the fairys left England.. many fleeing to France via Romney marsh and some returning to Kernow as English was not the language there at that time... bees have made a pact with man, ax long as man did not hate where thy were.. but many of the true wild bees will only live where man treats them fair be it in a wall of an old house being more favorable to them than a hollow tree"....

​

 

[meetballuk]

i missed a swarm by an hour yesterday, it went into the hollow of a near by tree, must have been old nest as found some old wax a foot of tree.
my freind had some sucess with taping a container to the opening and drilling a hole lower and smoking them out

 

[tonybloke]

I know of a huge feral colony in an oak tree, bees have been in this tree for over 20 years (though can't say if this original colony, or the site has been re-populated)

 

[Heather]

Yep, I got my first bees as a swarm from a wonderful old tree in friends garden -and 8 years later there is still a colony there- doesn't seem to have been a gap year.
But tree dying, being supported by small 'telegraph pole device' as most is horizontal now so it is going to be a big task rescuing the bees if the tree has to go. I reckon the colony has invaded about 5' of the secondary trunk.
Tree appears to have ?woodworm as masses of dusty, crumbly holes appearing in all the branches.

 

[ultreen1]

I collected a swarm over 2 weeks ago from a garden . The swarm (according to the garden owner) had come from his compost bin and they had been there for 2 years.
Now where they came from b4 then I don't know.
How long does a colony need to be unmanaged b4 you could call it feral?
The swarm did have varoa but the drop was very low.

 

[BDCS]

When I collected some bees from Thurrock bees he showed me a wild colony in a tree which had been there a couple of years - they seemed to be quite happy where they were

 

[melias]

We've had a feral colony in an unused chimney for 15 years+.

 

[susbees]

The bees have settled overnight in four clumps and we could never get them all in one place - I can only presume the queen is in the pipe somewhere and they won't leave but they were backwards and forwards to several spots including hanging under the poly bait hive which they would not enter! All this took place well up ladders which fortunately were really good ones.
Advice would be very gratefully received.

Assuming you are BKA members or have private Public Liability insurance...working at height and with someone nearby with epipen-prescribed allergy and with a difficult extraction would be plain daft otherwise.

 

[Chris Luck]

Not everywhere in the UK would be suitable for bees to live as an unmanaged colony anyway, but assuming there is all season forage and a long enough season they will live anywhere there is a suitable enclosed cavity between ground level and several hundred feet.

Chris

 

[sainfoin]

Doing things in public

Yes I am a BKA member and we do have public liability insurance. My husband who has an epipen took his along so either of them could have used it if necessary! In fact she was next door with her lovely friend and eventually right down the garden where she could see in safety. Luckily the bees hadn't got indoors and they could enter at the other end, its a long lovely house in a beautiful setting.
Her husband who hadn't been close to bees before got into the second suit and was up a parallel ladder with me in a maze of buzzzing thoroughly interested in all their vagaries.

 

[meetballuk]

Does BKA insurance cover BK's falling off ladders and breaking guttering and windows etc?

 

[tonybloke]

nope, have a read of the policy doc on the B*KA website (members section)

 

[clv101]

OH and I are having an intense discussion about bees living wild as nature intended in the UK. I tend to the view that this is pretty unusual he feels they must be able to manage apart from world of men.

The UK is a very strange place today compared to its natural state. Before we turned up the British Isles was mostly woodland. Trees are the natural environments for bees. However, now most of the trees are gone, and our buildings often have gaps leading to useful sized voids, it should come as no surprise we often find bees in buildings.

 

[Pooh Bear]

One of the members of my beekeepers' association has bees in her attic that have been there for at least 70 years. I would be interested in any research that has been carried out on the wild bee population... anyone know of any?