swarming bees in garden

ChoKuRay

I recently moved house and have just discovered the house beside me has bee hives. Over the pst few days I have had to come in from the garden and take the kids in as the bees are swarming. This is an aggressive swarm and according to a neighbour it's a common event. I have called to the house but there is no answer and apparently he's not too nice of a character to deal with. Is there any guidelines or a governing body I can contact regarding this? Surely is not ok for this to be allowed in a residential area. I am terrified we will be attacked.


Actually this evening my partner was stung on the back by a bee as he was out in the garden. We called into the neighbour who was really nice and said he wasnt aware they swarmed on sunday but he had suspected so. he said sorry about the sting but he can direct where the bees fly and the hives were there 20 yrs. I wasnt giving out but just letting him know so after he presented me with a pot of last years honey he sent me packing lol!

anyway I just need advice on how to stop it happening again really and i suppose i wish to know if hes entitled to have the bees in a residential area.

brianmc

Hi ChokuRay,

This probably isn't the time you want to hear someone being pedantic about semantics so I'll get it out of the way and come back to the problem because I just can't resist - mostly for the benefit of other people reading in.

I suspect (I could be wrong) that the bees aren't swarming on the days you describe... If the bees swarmed there would be a dramatic cloud of bees heading into the sky all at the one time and they would look for somewhere to settle in a big cluster. Swarms are generally quite gentle but then on the other hand from the sheer number of bees it wouldn't be completely unlikely to pick up a sting.

Anyway, that doesn't help you (and I don't know if I can).

Especially on these good days at this time of year, the hives can/will be very busy. There are going to be a lot of bees about around a hive but they will mostly be concerned with flying off to forage and getting it back into the hive.

There is no official authority that can make a decision about this other than perhaps the council if his bees are creating a nuisance. There are no regulations that he is breaking by having the bees there. A lot of beekeepers keep bees in back gardens, on roofs and so on. Often a beekeeper can have a hive within a few metres of neighbours and the neighbours never find out.

Personally, I would prefer not to keep bees that close to other people to avoid the hassle and the potential for someone getting stung. Bees do have their off-days too.

Is there a decent fence or wall between your garden and the hives? It can help to have a fence that is high enough to push the path of the bees up over people's heads. Most of the bees are heading off to a specific location to forage at any one time and if they have to fly up to get out they will fly up and head straight to their target. It might help. You wouldn't even notice them.

If the bees really are being aggressive, a good beekeeper can usually manage this in some way. It might be caused by some issue in the hive... no queen, good forage has just dried up, whatever. If the colony is generally just an angry strain of bee, the beekeeper should change the strain by introducing a new queen - particularly in such close proximity to other peoples gardens.

Maybe it's not much help, but be assured that getting stung is probably less likely than it feels right now and there's a couple of ideas that might help out if you can keep good relations with the beekeeper.

Also, I don't want to sound patronising but a lot of beekeepers get a hard time because some people identify every flying buzzing insect as being one of their bees and they get the blame for bumble bees/wasps/etc.

I have a (very very small) colony sitting on a balcony at the moment. It has been there for over a month now and despite trying, I have never managed to spot one of my bees in the garden just below it. If I look up I can see bees flying but in the garden you would just never know they are there. In fairness your situation could be very different with full size hives.

ChoKuRay

thanks for that and it confirms what the guy said. He was really informative and as I dont know anything about bees except that they sting I wasnt going in with blazing guns. I have sat in the garden with the bees flying over my head as they headed to the hive and honestly it doesnt annoy or freak me at all. they are busy and never came into the garden until now. on sun there was a swarm over the wall and it was an aggressive cloud of bees for about 20 minutes then they just disappeared. I presume they settled somewhere else. Its just that since sunday the bees have come into the garden and been aggressive. Only a few but then my partner got a sting. Just wondering if theres a reason and I suppose i wondered if it gets to be an issue if I have any action to take.

I really dont know a thing about the bee thing although I am now very intrigued about their behaviour.

solargain

Get some green netting ( about 10 ft should do) & put it up at the bottom of your garden near your neighbours hives , it will force the bees to fly up & over your garden , what ever they are foraging on the moment , you are in their flight path and thence the few stings, as soon as that finishes they will go in another direction.

Other than that there is nothing much you can do , bees have been around for millions of years

solargain

https://www.facebook.com/fibka?ref=hl&ref_type=bookmark

Have a look at the photo here with the netting to stop the bees flying across the people in the garden

Oldtree

solargain wrote: »

https://www.facebook.com/fibka?ref=hl&ref_type=bookmark

Have a look at the photo here with the netting to stop the bees flying across the people in the garden

could you embed a photo as I'm not sure which photo you are referring to.

Would ordinary Green Windbreak plant protection netting do the same job and be less or more expensive?



http://www.johnstowngardencentre.ie/p/green-windbreak-plant-protection-netting---50m----shelter-net/windbreak

solargain

Oldtree I don't know how to embed it when I click on insert photo its looking for a website address

Please explain how you want me to do it

Oldtree

Oops my mistake thought it could be done directly.

Here are 2 options to show FB photos here.

If you click on the photo of your choice in FB it will come up as a single photo on a web page, then just copy the link into here to show what you are talking about. Like this photo:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154315233870453&set=gm.790216204363203&type=1&theater

Otherwise there is a download feature on the bottom right of the photo on the above page on fb, download it to your computer and then upload to here as an attachment and embed. Like this:

welsummer

what do you mean by an aggressive swarm. were people getting stung

Qualitymark

Also, don't have anything yellow in the garden; tis well I remember years ago Mothercare putting a note in their catalogue saying their paddling pools were no longer yellow as yellow attracted bees and wasps.

solargain

Qualitymark wrote: »

Also, don't have anything yellow in the garden; tis well I remember years ago Mothercare putting a note in their catalogue saying their paddling pools were no longer yellow as yellow attracted bees and wasps.

Very surprised to hear that because honey bees don't see yellow very well. The colour they see best are blue , green and ultravoilet & they cannot see red at all it looks black to them . The can see more at the ultravoilet end of the electromagnetic spectrum . Flowers give off signal which honey bees see in ultra voilet light that has arrows on in to point to where the pollen / nectar is located so their flowers get pollinated, that is why the young beekeepers above are wearing light coloured gloves

brianmc

solargain wrote: »

Very surprised to hear that because honey bees don't see yellow very well. The colour they see best are blue , green and ultravoilet & they cannot see red at all it looks black to them . The can see more at the ultravoilet end of the electromagnetic spectrum . Flowers give off signal which honey bees see in ultra voilet light that has arrows on in to point to where the pollen / nectar is located so their flowers get pollinated, that is why the young beekeepers above are wearing light coloured gloves

Good point.

Although neighbours pools, saunas, Jacuzzis etc. can be a problem for beekeepers because once a colony has found a handy water source they will tend to stick with it. Hundreds of bees collecting water from your paddling pool is probably not what was in mind when it was being bought.

Perhaps mothercare were just trying to be seen to be pro-active about a problem and came out with "oh, it's just the yellow ones...", shortly followed by... "perhaps you'd like to buy a blue one?"