Bees in the loft

[Tim Hall]

I appear to have a nest of bees in the loft.  At first I assumed they were wasps, but a chat with a pest control company said it's a bit early in the year for wasps to be active.  Having had a peek out of my bedroom window, I can see a dozen or so fattish flying insects flying in an out of a crack in the eves.  They don't keep very still, so photographing one for identification purposes is a bit tricky.  I'd say they too big to be honey bees, so I'm assuming some kind of bumble bee. 

I'd rather not kill them, just let them be(e) if possible. 

What does the panel think?

[Ruthie]

There's a thing about bees on BBC1 right now Tim, maybe have a look and see if they look like your little squatters?

[Kim]

Sell the house.

Or run away screaming, then send Wowbagger in dressed in net curtains and cricket kit.

[Tim Hall]

I think the land lady might get grumpy if I sell the house.  Ruth, all I can get on BBC1 is Mary Berry having her lunch.  BBC 2 held out hope, as it's showing "The Natural World" but it's a bout Great White Sharks.  I'm going to need a bigger hive.

Web based research suggests they're likely to be Bumble Bees of some sort and aren't really a bother. They'll die off in a couple of months.   

[Ruthie]

I think the land lady might get grumpy if I sell the house.  Ruth, all I can get on BBC1 is Mary Berry having her lunch.  BBC 2 held out hope, as it's showing "The Natural World" but it's a bout Great White Sharks.  I'm going to need a bigger hive.

Web based research suggests they're likely to be Bumble Bees of some sort and aren't really a bother. They'll die off in a couple of months.

It was Mary Berry playing with the bees but she's left the poor things alone now.  I should think so too.

OT:  there are bees in the park behind my house, and the beekeepers are having an open day tomorrow.  I might pop along.  See what I can put in my pots to attract some sound and life to the back yard.

[Brucey]

from your description they probably are bumble bees.  It is about the right time of year for them too.

If so they will make nest and there will never be more than a few hundred bees in it; bumble bee colonies are small. Come late summer it will be done and dusted; if you don't want a repeat next year then block off the entrance (in the winter, or once this year's colony is finished). They are not aggressive by nature, so unless you obstruct their flight path or start doing something right next to the nest then they will just leave you alone.

Most bumble bee species (in theory there are about ten different types) in the UK are endangered, so not the best thing if you destroy them.  You may not get a precise identification of species (even from an expert) because the morphology of individual bees (i.e. size and markings) can vary with how the conditions in the colony are food-wise.  A colony that is doing well will tend to produce more uniform bees IME, whereas one that is struggling (or was struggling earlier in the year) will tend to produce more smaller bees that are not so representative of the species.

Old bees (and 'old' means a few weeks of being active flyers) look different to young bees too; young bees are hairier, where older ones appear to 'go bald' in places where their hair is rubbed off, and the bee usually looks darker-coloured where this has happened. The hair doesn't regrow or anything.

If they are a lot smaller, but not wasps or honey bees, they could be mason bees.  Past that there are several hundred other obscure species of other bee, but most of these are 'solitary bees', eg you may see lots in a wall or something, but they each make their own tiny nest rather than share a communal colony per se.

cheers

[Kim]

Web based research suggests they're likely to be Bumble Bees of some sort and aren't really a bother. They'll die off in a couple of months.

That's a bit quick.  Unless the BHPC are in town, I suppose.  They can't all be having fatal 30mph+ collisions with recumbent cyclists' noses.

[Wowbagger]

Brucey has it. If they are wasp-sized bees and are going in and out in very large quantities, then they are honey bees and that presents a problem as not only might you have 80,000 or so potentially aggressive insects busily making comb inside a cavity wall (get that out without demolishing the house!) but they are also likely to swarm, which can be a damned nuisance, and survive the winter to give you exactly the same problem next year.

Bumblers, of which there are about 30 British species and I think they are all protected, start off with a small nest built by the queen, who overwinters alone, having mated in the autumn shortly after emerging from her clammy cell. The first workers to emerge extend the nest and look after the littluns and at the end of summer, if successful, the colony will produce a number of new queens and some drones and they will mate. The drones will die (their genitals explode on the point of climax) and the queen, hopefully, finds a nice cosy quiet niche in which to spend the winter until it's hey-nonny-no and ring-a-ding-ding time. Wasps do something similar, so it's about this time that their nests start expanding.

Just hope it isn't hornets. 

[Canardly]

Reading this brings tears to the eyes. Poor things.

[hellymedic]

Mebbe swarm catcher otp can help...

[Aunt Maud]

We've had a Bumble Bee nest under the cobble floor of our shed for a few years now and they seem quite happy there.

I think BB's do their thing underground. My parents have Masonry Bees in their old disused kitchen flue, they've been there for as long as I can remember and again present no problem at all.

[P Walsh]

If they are not too much in the way, leave them. Lots of people try to get bumble bees to nest in their gardens, and a loft is not much different. I've even tolerated wasp nests in the past. You don't tend to get many more in the main part of the house just because they nest in the loft.

[Poly Hive]

Round fluffy profile is bumbles (which are not protected AFAIK) waspy profile but black or brown or  orangy is honey bees.

Colony under floor for several years is not bumbles as their life cycle gets them to start anew every year by reason of disease control.

 Bumbles will be pretty much gone by August. Ones we have had in our roofs over the last few years have been gone by August in the east mids here. They are lovely to watch and do a great deal of good.

PH

[Mr Larrington]

Beekeepers, yes … they've gotta want to be – "I want to be a beekeeper! I wanna keep bees! Don't wanna let them get away; I wanna keep them! They have too much freedom … I want bees on elastic, so when they get pollen, they come back here! My father was a beekeeper before me, his father was a beekeeper before him; I wanna walk in their footsteps." And their footsteps were like this: [runs wildly from imaginary bees] "I'm covered in bees!"

[Jurek]

Some context.
You are Izzard AICMFP 

[Marj]

I appear to have a nest of bees in the loft.  At first I assumed they were wasps, but a chat with a pest control company said it's a bit early in the year for wasps to be active.  Having had a peek out of my bedroom window, I can see a dozen or so fattish flying insects flying in an out of a crack in the eves.  They don't keep very still, so photographing one for identification purposes is a bit tricky.  I'd say they too big to be honey bees, so I'm assuming some kind of bumble bee. 

I'd rather not kill them, just let them be(e) if possible. 

What does the panel think?

I had them in the roof last year, i rang a beekeeper and she identified them as bumble bees. She said to leave them alone as in August they would disappear and she was right, no sign of them this year.

[drossall]

Local bee-keeping society may be prepared to re-home them if they are the right kind? We had them recently at church. We have a tame bee-keeper who moved them to a suitably distant hive, and then wrote a "letter from the Queen" for the newsletter, announcing the removal

[fuzzy]

Earlier today I spotted a squadron of bees flying around the roof of my humble abode. On closer inspection (deployed a ladder to get a better look) I found that they were Bumblebees and that some were creeping in under the tiles.

I checked the loft and saw no evidence of habitation so suspect that maybe there is activity in the voids created between the tiles and the felt, between the battens. Research suggests they are probably Tree Bumblebee and the squadron were males awaiting a queen to emerge to mate.

I don't want to move or destroy any nest if there is no risk of it causing damage.

Am I safe allowing my humble abode to be used as a bumble abode?

[Tim Hall]

Ah, I had this last year. I think the deal is they buzz off fairly sharpish, causing minimal, if any damage.

Linky to last year's bee question here

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think some species of bumble bee are protected. There are over 200 bee species in Britain altogether: https://bumblebeeconservation.org/about-bees/identification/

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Reading this brings tears to the eyes. Poor things.

Had a crack in the wall and noticed a solitary bee kept coming and going in and out.   It wasn't doing me any harm so I left it.  After a few months there were hundreds of them

Sadly we couldn't live with it and the wall needed serious repairs anyway so I was forced to commit mass anthophilicide.  Sorry bees.

In mitigation I would claim we later lived with a hornets nest in the garden for two years. We are only reluctant murderers.