Problem with honey bees

[Lady D]

All of a sudden today I have honey bees all over my hummingbird feeders. The only good thing is that my feeders all have bee guards but they still are two and three thick on each flower on the ones with bee guards. They have been on them since around noon.

I've not had any issues with them at all being on my feeders, I have had them out since March 1st, a couple of them. The others I have had out for about two or three weeks. My poor hummingbirds cannot get to the feeders and nectar for them. And there are five feeders out on the porch and they are covering them up.

Honey bees are good for many things but what can I do to get them off my feeders? My feeders usually are half empty when I get home in the afternoon and they are 3/4 full because of the bees. They are running my hummingbirds off or either they are barely able to get a drink without them swarming the feeders.

I do not need to get stung and don't want to kill them. But they are tormenting my birds. Any suggestions??? I try to go out there and bump the feeders with a broom to get them off but they of course end up back on them. There are more now than there were an hour ago. :angry:

 

[NoHall]

Call your county extension agent and find out if they have a list of local beekeepers. One of them may be interested in coming to harvest the hive, which will eliminate your problem altogether.

Do you know where they're coming from? If they get in your house, you'll have a problem...

 

[Lady D]

Call your county extension agent and find out if they have a list of local beekeepers. One of them may be interested in coming to harvest the hive, which will eliminate your problem altogether.

Do you know where they're coming from? If they get in your house, you'll have a problem...

No, I don't. I wish I did know. They need to go away. Sure don't want them in my house. I have had no problems at all and today they have just come out of nowhere. There were none around early this morning when I was replenishing the sugar water.

It has warmed up significantly over the past several days though. Don't know whether that has brought them out more. I need to do that for sure. Thanks NoHall.

 

[NoHall]

At dusk (probably about now!) you can probably see where they are headed. Hollow trees are still their favorite spots, but they weill find knotholes in houses.

I only know all of this because one of my best friends got bees in her house. Her husband's job takes them out of the state for a month each summer, and the bees appeared just before they left a couple of years ago. I ended up doing to research for her to find a solution. The bad news is that we never did figure out how to get rid of them. The good news is that they just left on their own when the weather got cold.

Yours may do the same.

 

[DD]

No, I don't. I wish I did know. They need to go away. Sure don't want them in my house. I have had no problems at all and today they have just come out of nowhere. There were none around early this morning when I was replenishing the sugar water.

It has warmed up significantly over the past several days though. Don't know whether that has brought them out more. I need to do that for sure. Thanks NoHall.

Welcome to my world, LadyD.

 

[InletBchDweller]

LadyD, I would do what NoHall suggested. Call a local beekeeper to see if they can move the hive to one of their soupers. Here is a link to the TN Beekeeper Association... http://www.tnbeekeepers.org/

And while you are at it see if they have any natural raw honey for sale, much better than the stuff in the stores...

 

[TooFarTampa]

No, I don't. I wish I did know. They need to go away. Sure don't want them in my house. I have had no problems at all and today they have just come out of nowhere. There were none around early this morning when I was replenishing the sugar water.

It has warmed up significantly over the past several days though. Don't know whether that has brought them out more. I need to do that for sure. Thanks NoHall.

Maybe they will go away. If not, NoHall is right, you need to know where they are coming from.

Here is what a hive looks like in a wall.

Yes this is (was) my garage.

 

[DD]

Maybe they will go away. If not, NoHall is right, you need to know where they are coming from.

Here is what a hive looks like in a wall.

Yes this is (was) my garage.

Holy Crap, TFT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TooFarTampa]

Holy Crap, TFT!!!!!!!!!!!

It's OK. They didn't do much damage, after all. It was a sticky gooey mess to get out, though.

The hive got real big because I tried to get a beekeeper to come take them away because when bees are dying en masse worldwide, you don't want to kill more bees. Well, I didn't. The bee whisperer guy that we found hemmed and hawed and delayed and kept forgetting about us, and a year later the hive was partly Africanized due to new cranky bees moving in. :shock: So we sent in Mr. Exterminator -- three times. Nobody got stung. The contractor we brought in to open up the wall was, shall we say, surprised at what he found. But he was a good sport!

You can see where the bees were trying to build an addition onto their nest, to the next stud over.

 

[SHELLY]

I guess I'm the only one who is happy to hear that at least some of the honeybees are alive and well. There've been many stories in the press that our honeybees are disappearing--not good news for our food production.

Give the bee-people a call; I'm sure they'll be more than happy to help.