I have a large oak tree outside my bathroom window. This morning, I noticed a rather large, well, lump under one of the branches. I pulled out my camera and eventually my binoculars, and determined it’s a bee hive.
I’m terrible at estimating sizes, but I’d guess at least 6" across, hanging down at least 12". Maybe bigger. I saw lots of bee activity.
My main questions are around safety. I assume this has been there for a while to be this size, and I haven’t noticed it. But it is in the yard on the side of the house. It’s where a theoretical dog would hang out sometimes. I also wouldn’t want to be stung myself.
The tree 9’ from the overhang on the house, and a good 11’ from the wall of the house. The hive is maybe 15’ off the ground.
So, what says the hive (ha!) mind here? I’d love to leave them alone and let them live their bee lives, and help pollinate the neighborhood. But if there is danger to me or the other animals such as my friend’s dog, then I would look at a safe relocation.
Unless you or someone in your family suffers from anaphylactic shock when stung by a bee (which occurs in less than 1% of people, IIRC), and assuming they’re honey bees, I would leave them alone.
Heh. One of the names in the Florida section is a guy that a friend of mine just mentioned, from a bee keeper’s facebook group she used to be part of.
I do have a good friend who is a bee keeper, and have sent him pics. But he’s out of town right now and I’m not sure when he’ll be able to give me his insight.
I assume they are living on my branch, because it doesn’t seem like it’s the right time of year for a swarm. And I do see some honeycomb like structure in a part of the collective that didn’t have bees covering it.
I have about 3 within striking distance. They’ve never bothered the pets or kids.
I get the feeling they’d rather be left alone.
I don’t think I’ve heard of dogs being harried by bees. Anything can happen.
If you’ve not been bothered yet, I don’t think there’s any danger.
Call a local bee keeper for advice if you can’t determine your safety or peace of mind.
Those things take awhile to build. The fact it’s that big says it’s not new.
Since it’s been there awhile for sure, there’s no immediate urgency to change anything. The only thing that has changed about the overall hazard (be it great or small) in the last months is your own awareness of it. So don’t overreact in haste.
When you beekeeper friend returns to town, have them take a look. Meanwhile, chill. That’s what the bees are mostly doing.
I had six backyard beehives around ten years ago. Got some good honey from them. But disease and neglect did most of them in. I’ve kept one hive going for about ten years now. It’s at the back of the property. It was very active in the summer and fall, and I am assuming it is still active. At any rate, I walk around it, cut grass around it, etc. with no problem. In the summer I use a pair of scissors to cut the grass that grows up around the entrance. Because I am a couple inches from the hive when I am doing this, I only do it in the early morning or late evening, when the hive isn’t very active. Have never had a problem.
It’s bee catnip. We had some at a previous home right near the back door. Bees would be swarming over it and couldn’t care less about any of us.
We’ve had multiple hives in trees of our yards over the years. The only time I was stung was when I was using the electric bush hedger and didn’t know there was a hive in the bush … that got some into defense mode! Otherwise they’ve been live and let live.
When I first moved into my house there was a hive of bees living in the willow tree in the backyard. I never had any problem with them. I mowed the lawn, did stuff in the backyard, and all of that, and the bees never cared about me.
We also had salvia plants that the bees absolutely loved. I could weed in between the salvia plants, because the bees were so involved with the flowers that they completely ignored me.
After two years, I heard a noise in the backyard, looked out, and the bees were swarming. Then they all flew off, and I never saw them again.
A friend of mine had a hive in the rafter of her house for years and just let them alone. But before they could rent out the house, the hive had to be professionally removed, which meant removing a 6 ft by 3 ft section of interior wall to get at the enormous hive, and replacing the damage. She has a prized $5,000 jar of honey as a souvenir.
In a tree, tho, I would ask a beekeeper for advice but would be inclined to let them bee.
A lump under a breach sounds more like paper wasps than honey bees. Bees usually nest inside things.
But i agree with others that if it’s grown to be a big hive without anyone getting stung, there’s no urgency about doing anything with it, and probably, you and they can just go on ignoring each other. If it’s paper wasps, they aren’t terribly aggressive or irritable. Yellow jackets can be more aggressive, but if their foraging paths aren’t crossing your paths, there’s not much danger from them, either.
I had bees in a wall of the house once. In addition to damaging the wall and the ceiling of the spare bedroom, which developed an interesting but not pleasant smell (I really like honey, but combination of honey and rotting drywall and beeshit is another matter) they started coming out into the house in significant numbers; such that a human or cat putting an incautious hand or paw down without looking was very likely to get stung.
If you start getting bees in your house, don’t leave them there. Call a beekeeper to remove them, if you can find one, so as to save them alive. But you can’t count on being able to live with them comfortably for years.
I also agree, however – bees in a tree, leave them bee. I’d leave wasps alone, too, if they’re actually wasps; wasps are pollinators, and eat non-beneficial insects; and most wasps IME are a lot less belligerent than they’re portrayed as, if people just refrain from attacking them first. But I’d give a wasp nest a wider berth than a bees’ nest.
Agree on the wasps. There was a yellow jacket nest somewhere under some lavender in our front yard last year (they nest underground). I saw them hovering and landing in the area and just left it alone for a while. However, I did not want it to develop into a huge thing since it is near a sidewalk, and was not going into direct combat with them, so I decided to discourage them by dumping my daily coffee grounds over the area. I did that all spring and summer, and eventually there were no more yellow jackets hovering and landing over that spot. I guess they don’t like coffee grounds.
Some years ago, I lived in a house in a village, which house was on a slope; the front yard, in addition to a sloping lawn and a couple of steps down to the sidewalk, had a flight of stone steps on the side of the lawn leading down to the driveway. One year, a nest of yellowjackets moved under those steps. No problem as long as we didn’t use the steps, and the driveway was also accessible from the back yard and from the sidewalk; we hadn’t used those steps much anyway.
One night I came back home, left the car at the end of the driveway as usual, and came into the house (also as usual when coming home via car) through the back door; which involved coming through an enclosed porch into the kitchen. The enclosed porch’s outer door was open, and right inside that door the porch/back hall had an alcove with a freezer in it. As I came past the freezer I saw a skunk go behind it.
I continued on, carefully pretending to the skunk that I hadn’t seen the skunk and making sure to continue to leave the outer door open; went into the kitchen, firmly closed the kitchen door behind me, and left a note on the kitchen table for my sleeping housemates that there was a skunk in the back hall.
In the morning the skunk was gone. So was the yellowjacket ground nest under the stone steps: the skunk had paid rent for a night’s stay by digging the nest out and eating its contents.
Yeah, I had read that skunks will happily remove those nests, as will our local Stellar’s Jays, but somehow those two helpful creatures never came calling at my place.
Yeah, agree - this is different from a bee hive, which is enclosed and where they have set-up shop.
But disease and neglect did most of them in. I’ve kept one hive going for about ten years now. It’s at the back of the property. It was very active in the summer and fall, and I am assuming it is still active. At any rate, I walk around it, cut grass around it, etc. with no problem. In the summer I use a pair of scissors to cut the grass that grows up around the entrance. Because I am a couple inches from the hive when I am doing this, I only do it in the early morning or late evening, when the hive isn’t very active. Have never had a problem.