Bees

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Calling on bee experts - </p>

<p>I have some bees in a wall that’s entirely external to the house (the wall juts out). These bees have been in that wall a few times and usually will eventually get kicked out by ants after a lengthy ant/bee battle but the next year the bees always come back and try to establish another hive. I took out the hive a couple of years ago and left that part of the wall open but they came back and just moved in up higher in the wall. </p>

<p>My question for any bee experts - I don’t want to kill the bees and would like to keep them around since I have an avocado grove I need them for but I don’t want them in my wall. If I get one of those white ‘bee boxes’ will bees normally just move into it at swarm time and set up shop without one physically placing a queen in it? If it’s a possibility, would they be more likely to move in on their own if I put some honey or hive material in it? I wouldn’t mind having one or two of these on the property since I’m always concerned there aren’t enough bees (except for in my wall).</p>

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<p>ucla-usc dad</p>

<p>We had the same circumstance years ago. For us it was the Year of the Critters; deer in the cold frame in the backyard, raccoons in the chimney and bees under the clapboard. We had a beekeeper come and place a hive very nearby the knot in the clapboard through which they’d entered. He placed a funnel made of screening material against the entrance to the wall, the narrow end facing out, this allowed the bees to leave but not return, they used his hive by default. Once a week he removed the new bees from the temporary hive and brought them back to his property. Eventually he got the queen.
We didn’t want to keep the bees but also did not want to hurt them. They did not return.
Good luck.</p>

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<p>Thanks jacdad - that sounds like a clever solution. I’ll have to think about it that one.</p>