If it’s a swarm, they’ll probably be gone within a couple of days. They’ll be sending scouts out looking for a place to move into.
If you see a swarm in the tree and a few bees moving in and out of a little hole in your house – plug that hole up, quick!
I’m with those who reckon it’s paper wasps. They are not terribly aggressive unless provoked, yet they do tend to send a Queen off to make a new hive and they’re not always large hives.
Yellowjacket wasps are very aggressive and territorial. As mentioned, they tend to dwell underground so dogs and lawnmowers will anger them. Didn’t know skunks had the fortitude (like bears) to mess with bees and wasps so something learned.
Bees usually want to live inside something - your house, shed, gaps in tree trunks. The bees flying around won’t bother you if you leave them gather nectar. The hive will be guarded.
Bees are much better at pollination as the pollen gets all over them and sheds elsewhere. Wasps are much leaner and I’ve no idea if they produce anything like honey in large amounts.
Your approach depends on anyone having allergies and mind these pesky paper wasps flying around. As with all such insects, careful when drinking out of a soft drink can.
[former beekeeper here] If you can find a local beekeeper, he would love to have this colony, and would probably remove it free, as it’s worth $$ to him. They can’t live for long in the wild without some kind of home, i.e., a hive, and you don’t want them where they are now.
If it’s not honeybees, he can advise you what to do.
Yes, it is an odd time of the year for a swarm, but maybe their clocks are on bee-saving time.
Bees are better pollinators for some plants and in some weathers. In general for agricultural crops they are better pollinators. No, wasps don’t produce honey. Neither do most bees, at least not in significant quantities; it’s specifically honeybees who do that. There are lots of other bees, some of which are active in weather in which honeybees stay in the hive.
Wasps are also beneficials in that they’re predators who feed on other insects; often on insects that damage crops. Bees don’t generally do that.
Yellow jackets, while annoying and aggressive, do have a place in the food web - they take care of dead animals by cleaning them up - they also have the nick-name “meat bees”, which is why I let them alone in my yard for some time. But they are not good neighbors, no matter how beneficial they are to the local environment.
We had a couple of nests back when I was still the one mowing my lawn (riding lawn tractor). The first one I ran over resulted in 13 plus stings and they chased me most of the way across the lawn. Other than pain and soreness, no adverse effects. The second time (about a year later), they got inside my shirt and I got 17+ stings. That one I had to take some Benadryl as I could feel my throat tightening up (not anaphylactic shock, but I was definitely reacting).
Both nests got nuked. My wife and I love pollinators and we do what we can to support them (pollinator gardens, a few little houses on the property, leave most alone, etc.), but yellow jackets can fuck right off.
I guess the hive I found on the back fence of our new home’s yard belonged to hornets rather than yellowjackets, then. I was 17 and we had recently moved in; apparently we didn’t notice the hive until I got stung. To keep that from happening to anyone else, or any of the pets, I knocked down the hive with the garden hose then ran like hell to get inside.
Hornets build large acorn-shaped nests. Usually hanging from a tree branch.
Paper wasps build cone-shaped nests, with the small end attaching to something. Usually under the eaves, but it can be almost anywhere. I got the crap stung out of me by disturbing one under some tall grass nest to a fence.
Yellowjackets build underground. They are extremely territorial, and you’ll know it when you find one of their nests.
If you mean with the water from the garden hose, that’s a good technique. They don’t seem to recognize the person standing behind the hose as causing the deluge; and they’re briefly too wet to fly well. So between the two you’re IME not likely to be attacked.
We had a huge yellowjacket nest in the bathroom wall one summer. One good thing about yellowjackets is that they die off in the winter and don’t reuse the nest. So we decided to wait it out. That became a little problematic when it got cold, and they wanted to get inside the house. A couple of them succeeded, and we had to watch where we put our hands carefully in the bathroom for a couple of weeks. But no one got stung, and no toxic chemicals were used.
We had a yellowjacket nest close to the front walk (underground) another year, and that was a bigger problem, because we had to walk past it. I covered the entrance with a clear glass bottle one night, following advise I’d found online that if they see light they don’t realize they need to dig a new exit, and they’ll eventually starve. To my surprise, that worked.
I remove paper wasps nests that are started in the windows many years (when they are small) but i ignore paper wasps nests outdoors. They are fairly mellow if you don’t bother them.
Digital (OP) are you in a place down south where there is no winter? Whatever it is you’ve got are thriving in January. Beowulf mentioned acorn shaped nests hanging from trees being hornets. I’d leave it to an expert to determine what it is, yet I reckon it’s safe to say these are not bees.
I had to deal with paper wasps whenever I visited my mother’s house. I can’t recall if the water from a garden hose would always knock those things down - they’re made of some special sticky pulp to keep ants from the larvae. Those hives can’t really be relocated even if you were inclined.
Late October (over 10 years ago) my mother wanted me to deal with honeybees under the attic eaves. I could hit them with RAID - and this was before we heard honeybees were vanishing - yet did find a beekeeper. They were honeybees, so he used smoke to placate them (that makes most of the bees disgorge their honey and prepare for flight - the guards are the reason the beekeeper wears that outfit) and he basically vacuumed them up, captured the Queen (which one must do) and no £500 honey in spring and no charge.
This was Long Island and it would be no use to tell my mother “they’ll probably die off over the winter leaving only the Queen”
I hope it all turns out okay.
I’d like to see pictures, that would probably cler up the bee vs wasp connection
I read this recently:
Isoamyl acetate in bananas
Isoamyl acetate in bees
So bees will react to banana smell - sometimes used in sunscreens - as aggression
FWIW:
Hornet:
Paper wasp:
Yellow Jacket:
Honey bee:
(note that this is uncommon - bees usually find a hollow, protected spot somewhere to make their hive). I have had countless bee hives on my property, and only once had one out in the open like that (way up in a tree).
Bees are kind of special as their stinger will remain stuck (and the bee will die) and that can only be to really put the hurt on the unfortunate sting-ee but to also put the call out. I’ve heard - at least apocryphally that “Africanized” bees will pursue you yet hornets (and their cousin yellowjackets) absolutely will (and they can sting multiple times).
And yeah, even without seeing OP’s pix (would still like to) my pound sterling is on hornets.
Honeybees don’t do it that way. The reason for that stock of honey is to keep most of the bees alive over the winter.
From wiki
Honey bees are known for their construction of perennial colonial nests from wax
I am corrected. I hope they are not as threatened/disappearing as a few years ago. Thus they shall inherit the Earth.
Thanks for the pictures. So the hives I commonly see in my yards are hornet nests. They still leave me alone. I see many bumble bees on my pollinator plants (along with various sorts of solitary bees, and my favorite, the hummingbirds) but not the hives. I’ve seen an occasional paper wasp hive around.
Thanks, all.
These look more like acorn shapes to me.
I’m in South Florida. We normally don’t have much winter, but it’s been cold (for us) - 50s and 60s - so far the past few weeks. Well south of the snow, however.
Let’s see..I’m a techy..I should be able to do that! 
I’m about to go out of town for a week and a half so if there’s anything to be done, it’ll be after I get back. Leaving Friday.
Thoughts?
That’s a migrating Honeybee swarm.
They should be gone soon, but that only means they found a permanent home - that could still be in your yard.
Ok awesome. I love that the little pollinators found refuge here for the moment.
I’ll see what the situation is when I return from my cruise, and report back here.
It does look like they have a comb-like structure under them. Do they build that at their temporary homes?
Thank you!