The Wikipedia article says that bumblebees are sometimes used for pollination (of tomatoes, for example). Perhaps a beekeeper could remove the colony and use it for that purpose.
Just a little more about bumblebees. I was stung by bumblebees several times when I was a kid. Once I stuck my face down near what must have been a colony and was stung several times. The other time, I put my hand down on top of one and it stung the palm of my hand. I don’t recall them hurting any more than any other sting I received and in both cases, I had to, in effect, arrange a scenario so that they COULD sting me.
I love bumblebees. I see them first thing in the morning, before the other bees are out and about and they’re the last ones I see out in the evening. They’re the first bees I see as winter ebbs. I love the drowsy buzz of them on a hot summer day. I like that they seem to have a little personality.
And it distresses me no end that people are constantly throwing poison (or tennis rackets) at organisms that do little harm and much good.
Bumblebees are humblebees so ifyouplease leavethebees anddonottease.
Some dogs will have problems (vomiting, diarrhea, facial swelling) after a venomous insect sting. I supply a few pills for people to have on hand in case of a problem. Ask your veterinarian, it is cheap protection to have on hand.
Are you positive they’re bumblebees? I’ve never heard of bees hovering around people and dogs. Sounds waspy to me. Try this: drop a piece of sliced ham on the ground. If the critters settle on and start munching, they not be bees, I believe.
Note to whoever’s interested: I found this out when we were being hovered at by several wasps once when we were picknicking. I took a piece of ham out of a sandwich and laid it in the grass a couple feet away from us and all the wasps landed and started chomping away. I didn’t know they were carnivores.
Carpenter bees will certainly hover around you, and act aggressive. In their case, the one that is doing so is probably a male. Carpenter bees do not form large social colonies, and usually the male does “guard duty” while the female bores holes in a convenient piece of wood. “Usually”, because there are reports of females occasionally cohabiting and splitting the labor, with one female guarding the nest while the other forages. As with other bees, only the females have stingers. The male is bluffing, and couldn’t sting you if he wanted to.
I’ve had colonies of carpenter bees living in my gazebo and the females are terrifying. It’s about the size of a hummingbird and about as fast too. My dog was terrified of it.
You face a dilemma worthy of Hamlet, don’t you? I’m on the “to bee” side, too. Look at it this way: they’re free toys for your dogs.
Daniel
whispering words of wisdom
Is this wretched demi-bee,
Half-asleep upon my knee,
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It’s Eric the half a bee!
Will Benadryl work in a pinch? My vet says it’s safe for dogs.
It really does sound like you’ve got carpenter bees, not bumblebees. The males are the ones that patrol around and act agressive, but they don’t have stingers. The females can sting, but usually hang around their nests, so no worries unless you try to mess with the nest. I’d worry more about what wood they are eating than getting stung.
They really don’t sound like bumblebees. I am not a big fan of bees in general (especially yellow jackets, pointlessly aggressive little bastards who deserveth death) but bumblebees are harmless and mildly entertaining. You’d pretty much have to grab one of them to get stung. And maybe not even then.
I wouldn’t go messing around with poisons. It would probably be riskier for your dogs then the chance of a random bee sting.
And if you do this, please post links to photos.
Diphenhydramine, given at the appropriate dose, is one of the drugs I would advise.
And on the other hand, if Sampiro dons the bee outfit and gets a video made featuring him singing “Queen Bee” (in the style of Barbra Streisand) it would probably be marketable on Ebay, or at least YouTube.
“And now you done and torn it!
You been messin’ with a hornet, she’s a blue-blooded wasp, you know.
And just as you do it, she’ll inject you with a fluid
That you ain’t even got but none.
You’re the meat on the plate, not even first rate,
She’s gonna feed you to her seventh son.
Just like the Queen bee, baby
Pray that you may be left on your own, uh huh
Nothin’ she’ll give you, gonna outlive you
But the queen bee’s never gonna be alone.”
Sampiro, I’m going to go against the mob here and say that it’s your yard and if you don’t want something in it, be it bumble bees, squirrels, or the mother-in-law, by all means do what you can to get them out. No justification is needed on your part.
Shagnastys idea has merit. When my ma had bees coming into her yard from a hive on the other side of the block I’d stand and zap them as they flew in. They’d fall out of the air like the Red Barons last flight. Fun, but it’ll take forever to get them all.
There used to be a spray (still available?
) that you would spray on the nest at night. It chemically froze the nest. The bees that survived would disintergrate, literally ripping themselves apart trying to move. Even the nest falls apart from it. I was just a kid when I saw my uncle use this stuff so I have no idea if it is still around.
That site shows me dogs and cats that have been stung, and they’ve got the swelling and the unhappy looks that go with being stung.
But that isn’t allergy. Allergy, in my book, is when a sting from a bee triggers a dangerous anaphylactic reaction that is potentially deadly.
The natural course of action with dogs and bees is: dog bothers bee, bee stings dog,, dog has painful paw or nose for a few hours, and swelling and itching for up to a week. Dog gives bee a wide berth in the future. Problem solved. That’s the timehonored method by which kids and pets learn to cope with bees.
Poisoning the bees, IMHO, leaves your dogs at greater risk. They never learn how to deal with bees and, if they are as inquisitive and playful as you say, they run the risk of being poisoned by the poison you lay out for the bees.
The really bee friendly method to get the bees to stop hovering around on man-height or dog-level, is to install a bee nesting opportunity somewhere high up on a wall, out of reach. The bees now nesting in cracks in the ground will move up as fast as New York senior citizens who are offered a free luxury condo in Florida.
You might see them making a bee line (from home to pollen and back again )after that, but they will fly way over your and the dog’s heads.
And there’s only so much bees a garden can support, so the bees in their luxury home will keep other bees out. Or out of pollen, at least.
I got me one of those bee’s nests myself. I love watching bees, so I hung it at eye level. It’s March here, and cold, but there’s already a carpenter bee who has lodged into one of the stalks of bamboo. He or she has managed to make a ball of pollen in the back. Must be from hazel or willowcatkins, as those are the only flowering trees now. Busy beastie. 
My plea to let the bees live was based on a conversation I had years ago.
I was a maintenance worker/handyman for a large city-owned apartment complex and had gotten complaints from some mothers about their kids being stung by bumblebees.
I called the local college’s professor of entomology and asked him what I should use to kill the bees and he said “Why do you want to kill them? Leave them alone!” and when I told him that kids were being stung his response was memorable;
" If the little bastards are being stung by bumblebees they fucking deserve it!"
There was some good advice about dynamite on the Evil Nazi Groundhogs thread (which has gone missing it seems). It didn’t work for the groundhogs but I’m sure it would do just fine for bees.
Try it and let us know.
I’ve posted a notice that I am declaring amnesty this day only. Bees will be allowed to occupy the left bank of my garden but all else is off limits. If they live in accord with this very reasonable solution they will be left in peace and pollen. If they enter the no fly zone they are subject to consequences. (Sanctions so far have not worked.) The sunny bees are far more peaceful than the bee-ites, it seems.