Insect and Spider Identification: Bee/wasp identification, 1 by neb2489

neb2489 wrote:
Hello all,

I’m hoping you folks can help me identify a bee/wasp from some admittedly very low quality photos. These fellas don’t like to stay still long enough to get a good photo, so I understand if these simply cannot be identified from my photos.

They suddenly began swarming our front porch two days ago, and we found yesterday that they are entering the bricks through a weep hole in the mortar. Since then we have not been able to use our front door. My hope is that these are not honey bees, as the process of removing those while protecting them would be costly.

If it helps at all in identification, they do not seem to be aggressive. I’ve been within 5 feet of the entrance to their hive without aggression, and they fly right by me.

Any conclusions you can draw would be greatly appreciated. Even if you can only rule out a few types based on the photo. I will try to get some better ones in the meantime.

Thank you all in advance.
-Ben