bees!!!

MissSBird

MissSBird

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Help!

Some bees appear to have decided my girl's stables is an appropriate place for a nest. They are flying into the gap between the wall of the stable next door and the wooden board that supports her hayrack - where my haynets hang.

Has anyone got any ideas as to how I can get rid of them safetly? I don't know if any of the sprays would be ok to use around horses and the last thing I want to do is hurt my girl...but would rather not have bees either!
 
i'd ring a local beekeeper and get them to come and get them... that's what i did when they swarmed in my stables years ago. horse will need to be out of stable while he goes in and finds the queen bee and gets her out etc!
 
Unfortunatly it's not a swarm - they are in between two pretty solid walks in a crack so I'm not sure he'd be able to get to them.

Might be worth a shot though and I could always seek their advice - anyone know how I can contact them?
 
Are they big fat bumble bees or smaller "ordinary" ones? Wrong time of year for ordinary bees to be swarming - what you see may be solitary bees waking up from hibernation. If they are the big fat bumble bees, I beg you not to harm them. They are close to being on the endangered species list. They do so much good work pollinating wild flowers and trees and are absolutely harmless if left alone. A bee dies when it stings. At this time of year, early flying bumble bees can get caught out by a sudden cold spell. They need huge amounts of instant energy to be able to fly. I read that if a bumble bee were the size of a man, that man would need something like the energy from 500 Mars Bars just to get airborne! So if you come across a bumble bee unable to fly because it is too cold and has no energy reserves left, get a teaspoon and scoop a bit of sugar on the end. Add a few drops of water to make it syrupy and hold it carefully under the bumble bee's proboscis (mouth parts). It's awesome. The bee will frantically dip it's "tongue" into the syrup mixture and you will see it sucking and sucking to get as much precious energy as possible. After about 10 mins, they start to rev up their wings and have a few practice buzzes without leaving the ground. Then they walk around a bit, might come back for some more sugar and suddenly they're off! Home safely to tend their solitary nests and another good deed done. There aren't enough bumble bees in the world so please try to help if you can. Mind you, I do get odd glances from the neighbours when I'm kneeling on the pavement holding a teaspoon on the ground with a look of intense concentration lol x
 
Yes please get an expert in to see which ones they are first and if they are bumble bees leave them to it as they are perfectly harmless and will not bother you or your horse...just go about their business. I have a mobile double field stable and they put a nest in my spare one a couple of years ago and never caused any trouble...they are lovely things and much endangered so please do not be tempted to do anything yourself.
 
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i'd ring a local beekeeper and get them to come and get them... that's what i did when they swarmed in my stables years ago. horse will need to be out of stable while he goes in and finds the queen bee and gets her out etc!

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Best thing to do, bees are becoming endangered, for goodness sake's don't spray them with anything!
 
My husband was thinking of setting up a beehive on our land but a local bee expert has said bees shouldn't be kept in the vicinity of horses as they don't like the small and may sting them so we were put off from having them. Definitely contact your local beekeeper in the first instance
 
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My husband was thinking of setting up a beehive on our land but a local bee expert has said bees shouldn't be kept in the vicinity of horses as they don't like the small and may sting them so we were put off from having them. Definitely contact your local beekeeper in the first instance

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There must be different views on that, near my summer home there's a field where they keep horses and in the field there's a fenced in area where there's two beehives. I think it's like they need about a 5 metre radius around the hive as "landing strip"/flying in or out area, I've also read that different breeds of bees are more or less aggressive than others.

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They are big fat bumbly bees and I had a feeling they might be endangered - just had no idea who to turn to.

Going to try and find a beekeeper who's advise I can seek and who may be able to help resite them into a more appropriate area.
 
We had the biggest bumble bee I have ever see come in to the hall we were doing a cat show in today, very slow buzzing around and then out the window and off he went.

I'm not keen on anything that buzzes, but keep the can of spray for wasps (evil things!) and flys (they disgust me), bumble bees I tend to open the window and waft them towards the window and throwing myself on the floor pulling faces as if there was gun fire if they come towards me rather than the window
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Bumble bees are house hunting, I had to evict a small group that decided one of my jumps was a good place to group together.

They aren't easily provoked and won't increase in numbers, so you can either leave alone or try and move them. You'll need to be able to remove the board and ideally get someone in bee keeping clobber to relocate the nest. However if they have only just started if you open up to board they should relocate by themselves. Do this first thing in the morning as bumble bees cannot fly until they are warm.
 
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