The bees in the chimney have never given much trouble up to now. They've drifted around at roof height and caused no bother. Yesterday was a different matter. Father was having a natter with Nice Mr Next Door and around twenty bees came for him. Nice Mr Next Door chased them off but father was stung and Nice Mr Next Door was menaced as well.
As Nice Mr Next Door is always working outside, it is quite worrying that he got bothered by bees. We have had those bees for years without any stings. In fact they have never taken much interest in us at all. I did wonder if we had a new swarm and now I wonder if the 'bad neighbour' bees have moved in. When I found out I went and had a look at the chimney and the bees were looking definitely stressed. I may have been forty foot below them and they are small and I am getting a bit short sighted but those were not the usual happy bees. Normally they are just floating around the chimney pot but yesterday they were diving and darting about and a lot less chilled. At least, as far as I understand bees. However Nice Mr Next Door did say that he had seen wasps mixed in with the bees, so perhaps they are not asbo bees but just bees under pressure.
We also have ants in the kitchen. We now have an ant trap down after spending a large slice of morning going from Homebase (shut down - when did that happen?), Tesco (didn't have any), Morrisons (didn't have any) and finally B&Q. I am unimpressed having a small plastic pot full of toxins perched on the edge of my sink, but that is where the rotters are coming in.
I don't mind getting rid of the ants but I will be keeping an eye out for the bees. They have been such good neighbours, I hope things don't go wrong.
So sorry to hear about your unhappy bees. If there are wasps in amongst them, that would definitely be cause for them to get very angry and upset. It means the colony is very much under attack. Wasps attack and kill bees, to rob them of their honey. The bees are trying to defend their hive, but are probably suffering very badly. The entrance is too big for them to defend and there are probably too many wasps.
ReplyDeletePoor, poor bees. Any chance you could make a wasp trap to help them?
I'll find a link with some info on how to make one, and I'll post it here for you. Back in a bit
Here's a good one. Scroll about half way down the page, to find "Solution 2". It looks very easy to do.
ReplyDeleteGood luck xx
http://drbeekeeper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-battle-of-wasps-attacking-bees.html
Thank you, Witch Hazel, I'll get onto it. I like having bees in the chimney, and it's the least I can do. WS xxx
DeleteThat's great Syb. Whatever happens, I look forward to hearing about it. Hx
ReplyDelete