So as some of you may be aware, Kate has wanted bees for a long, long time and constantly goes on about it. We have many bee books on the shelves, a beehive shaped composter, bee jewellery, and the list goes on. However, I have not been a strong advocate, as I think we’re probably a little too busy at the moment and whilst making our own honey sounds like a nice idea, I suspect that it would be a lot more work that it seems and it would probably annoy a lot of our neighbours too.

In the meantime, we always try and plant lots of bee (and butterfly) friendly plants that will hopefully help them prosper and attract them to the area. And we’ve put up a little bee house, to help them out (as mentioned in some earlier posts, 1, 2)

Well it looks as if our efforts have started to really pay off, becasue we noticed today that we now have have our own colony of bees!

The dance

I was looking out of our kitchen window after breakfast and noticed the shadow of something swarming around. I assumed it was going to be flies or mosquitoes or something, but didn’t think they would be big enough to really make a shadow. So I thought I better go and see what it was and what they were attraced to. Turns out, we had a load of bees (or at that time, I thought possibly wasps) attracted to our stack vent!

Bee butt

As it turns out, the tiling around the pipe hasn’t been fixed properly and the tiles have slipped down, leaving a gap around the pipe, which the bees have decided is the best place in town to stay for the summer.

Excuse the mess

So this is going to be something we’ll have to add on the the list of jobs that need doing. It probably explains why the bathroom ceiling has mould around that area. The roof tiles have a few missing bits and pieces, so it might be worth doing a proper job on it all.

Anyway, I tried getting a few close up shots (easier said than done), and I am fairly sure that they are Tree Bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) which are a relatively new species to the UK.

Photoshopped

Importantly, they tend to only stay for the summer before moving on and don’t cause any damage. So we are going to try and see if we can cohabit with them for a little while and see how things go.

Whilst I was clambering on the utility room roof, I also noticed that the bird box I mounted last year actually fell off.

What a mess

I will see if I can find some replacement slate and fix it up, as apparently this is the type of place that Tree Bumblebees actually like to nest, even if the birds continue to ignore it.

If there are any updates, we’ll keep you posted here.