Will nesting bees damage my cavity wall?

[queenbee]

For a few weeks we've been hearing buzzing when visiting the loo, and it's been getting louder. Small black bees with white bottoms have moved into the cavity between the outside air brick and indoor vent just under the main roof gutter. This space is wood lined. The window is directly underneath the vent. My younger son is paranoid about bees indoors having been stung quite a few times (mostly be wasps, but also be bees) when he was small. We've seen bees' nests which are huge at a honey farm in Wales. I don't know much about bees, so don't know what sort of bees they are. We have lots of varieties in the garden, including solitary bees with orange bottoms that dig little holes in the ground, masonry bees (?) that live in a garden wall, and of course bumble bees, but the ones nesting over the loo aren't like these. Do they sting? Do they make honey? Will they eat the wood and start on the cavity insulation? If they are a problem, how can I relocate them?

[G4WIL]

Hi Queen bee,
Your description points to your visitors being white tailed bumblebees :).
They will do no structural damage and will disappear with the onset of late Autumn/ Winter.
You describe them as small which means you are observing workers, the large queens are only seen in Spring and Autumn, the Queens you see in Autumn are virgin Queens which after mating hibernate over winter in order to start the whole cycle over again :).All the rest of the occupants of the nest will die off ;). the mated Queens will usually find a snug spot somewhere else away from the site of their birth.

I hope you have hours of pleasure watching the life cycle of these wonderful creatures, which if left unmolested will you no harm whatsoever :D.

John Wilkinson

[Richard Bache]

I agree, sounds like they are bumblebees:)
If they are bumblebees, they can sting, but generally won't. The only instance where I have known a bumblebee to sting is when someone has sat on them. They are clumsy and will fly into you if you stand in their flight path, but that is not a sign of agression, just of clumsiness!:D
I think it is a good idea to post a photo so that we can be sure that they are Bumblebees.:)

[Chris]

As per the post by G4WIL, they sound a lot like white-tailed bumble bees. I've never seen a white-tailed bumble bee (they are uncommon in most areas) but the workers are quite small. It is perhaps a little unusual that they are nesting in the wall cavity though. They often nest in old mouse nests.

Dunna worry, these bumble bees are a whole lot different form the honeybees you might have seen at Newquay. Like other bumble bees, they live in small colonies - they don't store a reserve of honey - and the nest completely dies off come late summer.

To get one of these creatures to sting you would have to literally sit on one. They are not aggresive or hugely protective of their nests.

I think the common sense advice would be to just leave alone. The nest will comprise a ball of wax cells about the size of a tennis ball, and it will be featherweight. It will crumble and disintegrate after the bees have died.

Not worth worring about.

[G4WIL]

Hi Chris, don't know where you hail from but the white tailed and the buff tailed are very common around here, the red/scarlet tailed one is the one noticeable by it's absence :).

John

[queenbee]

Thanks guys. Taking a photo of a bee on the north side of the house over 15' above the ground could be challenging, though I'll give it a go, but in the meantime we''ll stop worrying. We'd hate to do anything to reduce the bee population. I'm dead impressed you knew which honey farm we visited - or is there only one in Wales?

[Tony_B]

I'm dead impressed you knew which honey farm we visited - or is there only one in Wales?

I've fond memories of the Honey Farm in Newquay, Wales - it was a visit there about ten years ago that finally convinced me to take up beekeeping.

I visited again last summer and noticed they've got a colony of Leafcutter Ants in addition to their colonies of honeybees in the glass 'booths'.....

[Chris]

The Newquay (Wales) Honey Farm is well worth a visit. I've always thought, however, that it was a bit of a failing of theirs to set up this attaction in a far off corner of Wales - but they are commercial producers of mead and honey as well.

Something like this in the middle of London, and perhaps run by the BBKA, would have the potential to attract a lot of visitors.