There is a swarm of bees around the light by the front door and they are crawling in and out behind the light. What do we do? DH will probably want to spray them with Raid when he gets home. If we call someone to come get them, that will probably cost at least $50, and do they have to cut into the house?
Here's a picture but it doesn't show half the bees that are swarming around, but I don't think I'll go back out there and try for a better picture.
Raid makes a very good foam flying, stinging, insect killer. It is good because it coats them up really well and they die fast. But since half the can is air to make the foam, it empties really quick. I have another type of spray that stuns them immediately but then you have to stomp them. Normally, I spray the heck out of them with the hose then stomp them. That could be a bad idea though since it is connected to electricity. I have to be super careful because I am allergic. It is a 'me or them' thing.
I would kill them as quickly and thoroughly as possible and make sure they are not getting inside your walls.
You might also try making one of those containers out of a 2L bottle with the sugar water/pop/kool aid stuff in the bottom and see if they would all climb in and drown.
I tried ant spray and spider spray, because that's what we have. That just made them angry and they try to fly into the house when I open the door. (At least I know now they aren't killer bees.) The base of the lamp was dripping with spray and they are still all over it. I also am trying the bottle of sugar water and we'll see if that does anything. I hope the UPS guy doesn't come today.
Kelli -
Do you know what kind of bees they are?
Be careful!
http://acwm.co.la.ca.us/scripts/AHB.htm#One
They're honey bees. If they were the killer bee strain, they probably would have gone after me the first time I opened the door, before I even knew they were there. Regardless, I'm not going to mess with them much.
Bees have settled down to the normal semi-docile honeybee nature. I don't know what it is about me, if it is anything about me, but bees don't bother me. I have never been stung. And today doesn't need to be the first time.
UPS guy did come but I heard the truck and had him go to the garage instead of the front door.
Call a local bee keeper and he/she will come and take them away and give them a good home.
Bee keepers and or clubs can usually be found in the yellow pages.
Marc
Kelli-
Check Carefully.
They Very Possibly May be 'Mason Bees'.
Very Beneficial to the Garden and...
They Look Just Like What Your Calling 'Honey Bees'.
Thet Nest Until Late May Early June and Leave.
They are Perfectly Harmless and DO NOT STING but...
Will Protect Their Nest(Habitat)...Which is Usually Inside of Something.
Last Year We Had a Large Colony Fill-Up a Bird House with a Nest.
These Sound Like 'Masons'.
Fascinating! I've never heard of mason bees.
pictures that might help to identify what you have
http://www.pollinatorparadise.com/Solitary_Bees/PhotoGallery.htm
I'd not heard of them, either. Here's lots of pictures of Mason bees: http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=mason+bee
I bought a block of them a couple years back to help with the cherry and apple trees.....was one of the best harvests ever. They come in dormant in honeycomb type blocks from companies like GardensAlive.
Mason (aka 'Carpenter') bees are VERY territorial. They don't care much about people, save the usual flyby, but they will fight each other over and over and over. I've been caught in the middle of one of these scuffles before and the pair of them ran smack into me. No sting, just a shock, for me AND them! lol They will inspect you though, just like a curious hummer. Very unnerving to say the least. lol
We have valley carpenter bees, but they look like all-black bumblebees.
Yup, I enlarged the pic, and you're right, they aren't carpenter bees. Sorry! lol
Here's a scan of a dead bee.
Sure look like honey bees. Let us know if honey starts oozing out your lighting fixture. lol
Nice thread :-) I'm glad to read I'm not the only one w/ bee problems! They just started coming out this past week and are at both my front and back deck, usually between 4-5 bees at a time. They seem to live in the wood of the deck and siding and porch rails (my house is 30 years old). In an effort to thwart a bee the other day, DBF put some aluminum tape over the hole in the wood that he flew into...we thought surely that would trap him inside and kill him....NOT! lol. The next day we came out to see the bee had eaten clean through the (aluminum) tape! So frustrating - I can't wait till they're gone. Katherine
DH got some Sevin yesterday and I go out and spray the bees about every 15 minutes. There are a lot of them, more than could live just in the base of the lamp. They must be getting behind the brick.
When we removed one of our porch lights to replace it, we found an old wasp nest inside the wall. They probably do have a hive built in your wall if there's that many of them.
We have some sort of ground-nesting bees in our stone wall, and they're aggressive little boogers; once we see them getting active again, we're going to spray in their nest at night. That's the best time to get them, when they're calm in the cooler temps.
Kelli
I just had the same thing done yesterday, because I put it off to long. It cost $175.00 to have it taken care of, and I still have to go into the wall to remove the honey comb my self. You definately want to make sure you get it out though, as it will rot if the bees aren't around to keep it fresh.
Chris
Well you will be going after "buried treasure" Chris, seems logical to me.
The bees have only been around since Wednesday, there wouldn't be much comb there yet, would there? Won't the ants take care of the honeycomb and junk? (We have an incredible amount of ants here. They appear to get in the walls but are usually well-behaved enough to stay on their side of the interior wall. I don't think they live in the walls, they just travel there. I don't discourage that since ants keep termites away.) Even if the stuff does rot, would there be enough to make a smell? Who knows what kind of grody stuff might be in the walls of this house. It's better not to think about it. LOL. Anyway, if we can see and remove any honeycomb if the light is taken off, that is one thing, but I'd certainly rather not have to cut into the wall.
I'll bet there are a lot of bee problems (or problem bees) in California this year, since we had so much rain - like the most rain since 1878, or something like that.
