Bees nesting in my stables - help!

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goldypops

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I have 2 stables with bees nests in them!!! They are nesting inside the stone walls. At the moment its not a major problem as the horses are out 24/7. However, they will be coming in in autumn though (fingers crossed no laminitis necessitating box rest before then). Do the bees vacate their nest at the end of the summer or are they going to live there forever????? With bees being in short supply worldwide I don't want to do anything about them if I don't have to but at the same time they are not nesting in the most convenient place! anyone got any advice????
 
Unfortunately there is not a lot you can do as Bees are a protected species and cannot be disturbed. I would think that they will move at the end of the summer as it will start to get too cold for them.
 
Are they honey bees? If so contact your local beekeeping association and they will come and move them for you. No idea about other types of bees though, sorry!
 
They may be masonary bees but if you contact a local bee keeper they would be most interested as they are worth about £150 a colony to them & will come out and take them away if that is possible as long as they are not buried in a wall!
 
There was a bees nest in the stables at work and they contacted the council, I am unsure if the council contacted and sent another company out but the nest has since been removed.
 
WOW!!!! You mean I might be able to make money from them!!!! fingers crossed they are masonary bees then! Could do with £150.
They are suicidal bees - they find any water bucket and drown themselves so it will be easy to get one and then look it up on the website.
If they are bog standard normal ones may give the council a ring (does that cost me though???)
 
goldypops said:
WOW!!!! You mean I might be able to make money from them!!!! fingers crossed they are masonary bees then! Could do with £150.
They are suicidal bees - they find any water bucket and drown themselves so it will be easy to get one and then look it up on the website.
If they are bog standard normal ones may give the council a ring (does that cost me though???)
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'Bog standard' honey bees are also worth money!! And any beekeeper will collect them for you.
 
goldypops said:
I have 2 stables with bees nests in them!!! They are nesting inside the stone walls. At the moment its not a major problem as the horses are out 24/7. However, they will be coming in in autumn though (fingers crossed no laminitis necessitating box rest before then). Do the bees vacate their nest at the end of the summer or are they going to live there forever????? With bees being in short supply worldwide I don't want to do anything about them if I don't have to but at the same time they are not nesting in the most convenient place! anyone got any advice????
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Is this an actual swarm of bees, (there would be hundreds if not thousands)? If so they are probably honey bees and as other people have said, a local beekeeper would be very interested to collect them. Probably won't pay you though. If there are just a few bees going in and out of holes in the brickwork they will be masonry bees and not really of interest to a beekeeper as they do not swarm. They are usually docile and harmless if left in peace and will eventually go away. I had to get rid of a swarm of bees that took up residence in a chimney and flew into my dining room. They were nesting at the top of the chimney and could not be accessed. I still feel guilty at having to have them killed.
 
Last year we had a colony of bees move into the batrn & set up house under a pallet where we stored bales of hay. They were no trouble, if you knocked the pallet you would hear them all buzz but they never attacked anyone. They were there for a couple of months or so in the summer & then one day they were gone. Ours weren't honey bees though, they looked like 'bumble bees'. If you leave them alone they won't bother you.
 
I had bumble bees in my stable for the last three summers. No sign this year.

At first they worried me, and I did look into ways to remove them. I contacted the beekeepers forum looking for suggestions. They couldn't think of a way to do so without killing them, and some actually said it would be considered an acceptable response considering their proximity to a valuable animal.

But...all things considered, for the hour or so she was in a day, she was never bothered by them. Totally ignored them as they bumbled in the door, under her to their nest and out again.

They were always gone by the end of September. I got very used to them. Infact they became a feature of my summer.

In a really odd sentimental way, the summer my mare was put down was the last summer I saw them.
 
I think it varies on where you are to how you can remove them ... here the local council will not remove them as they are protected (unlike wasps!), and the local bee keepers I have spoken to will not touch them incase of disease.

One way the local bee man told me to get rid is to lightly spray the nest 3x a day with water.... the bees will think they have a "bad nest spot" and move on (apparently!!)
 
Just came back to me - the YO did try smoking my bumbles out the first year. Didn't work, and nearly set the stables on fire :D
 
OKAY, I am a beekeeper so here goes:
If they are bumble bees, they will die off a the end of the summer, but the queens hibernate and start a new nest somewhere else the next spring. That's why you see those massive ones early in the year.
The same with solitary bees.They just have a small brood in a small hole in the wall

If they're honey bees they set up a permanent home and stay all year round.

The council don't remove them. They may have a contact number of local beekeepers though.

They certainly aren't worth anything. Don't forget the beekeeper is doing you a service.

The only way to get them out of a wall is to break the wall open to gain access.

I once removed a nest from someone's roof. I had to remove the tiles, cut through the wood. Remove the bees and the comb. This is really a horrible job and not really worth the effort to be honest. The beekeeper will be left with a load of swarmy, possibly diseased bees with no value to him at all. He will be out of pocket with his fuel, tied up one of his hives and will have wasted a large part of his day most beekeepers do this sort of thing as a kind of PR exercise. Please bear this in mind, please don't think he's lucky to get the bees. Probably best (although I hate to say it) spray them at night with a whole tin of wasp spray and bung up the hole with news paper. Unless you don't mind the wall being demolished. You have to get the queen and all the brood out, because the bees won't leave either. Then all traces of the old nest have to be removed as the scent will attract swarms the next season.

Your first jo is to see what type of bees they are. Are they furry? what do they look like?
 
Thanks lazybee and everyone else.
I cant get to the nest unfortunately, the entrances to both go into the wall near ground level and I wouldn't be able to take down the wall as its a really old barn and would probably do more damage to the barn than the bees are doing to me!!!. I will see if I can get one of the bees when they dive into a water bucket and see what sort it is and report back. There isn't hundreds of them I just see 3 or 4 at anyone time coming and going.
I have had to put the horses in for a couple of hours temporarily over the last week. The little 10hh is fine as the bees fly over the top of him and don't seem to notice him. Unfortunately the 16hh mare is right in their flight path and they kept bashing into her neck which she didn't appreciate!
 
I would say you have bumble bees. Honey bees don't nest near the ground. 8 to 12ft is normal for wild bees. It's only beekeepers that force them near the ground in hives. Bumble bees don't usually cause a problem unless you stick your head in the nest. Just block up the holes in November and that will be it. I had a bumble bee nest in one of our stables last year. The only problem I had was, one of the dogs used to wait for them to return and eat them:eek:
 
Toby_Zaphod said:
Last year we had a colony of bees move into the batrn & set up house under a pallet where we stored bales of hay. They were no trouble, if you knocked the pallet you would hear them all buzz but they never attacked anyone. They were there for a couple of months or so in the summer & then one day they were gone. Ours weren't honey bees though, they looked like 'bumble bees'. If you leave them alone they won't bother you.
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Same as above. We had nesting Bumble Bees under pallets last year, their entrance was under the door, they weren't a problem, never aggressive even with us going in and out for hay etc and they disappeared come the colder weather so I don't think you have anything to worry about.
 
you can't do anything about bees unless they are causing a problem then you are allowed to kill them, i had honey bees in my hay container last summer, we just made sure we didn't slam the door and annoy them and they never caused us any bother:)
 
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