Bees Buried into wall

Could it not be lots of individual mason bees?

Trousers and I are in our second year of entertaining, not one, but two colonies of bees in the front wall of The Funny Farm. The first year, we had hundreds of dead bees on the windowsills inside the house. This year they just seem to be 'getting on with it' from the outside.

It is possible to get them out (though be careful who you get to do it as some would simply kill them for ease) but I have to ask... why?
Unless they are creating a specific problem could your sister not leave them be?

Wild/feral colonies that find a way to survive the various bee diseases unaided are a very important source of genetic material for those keepers who don't see artificial insemination and chemical treatments as sustainable or desirable.

Any feral colony has the advantage of not having a beekeeper messing with them so should find it easier to cope with their other pressures, but importantly they are fully susceptible to natural selection and that's very much the way forwards. Those which survive and thrive are likely in possession of some genetic trait(s) which may make them more hygienic, resistant or other characteristic which could eventually lead to throwing off or coping with parasites/diseases.

It's a thought anyway.

As for removal, it's hard to answer without knowing exactly what the situation is, but the main options are:

• Kill them with pesticides, pyrethroids are extremely toxic to bees. It may take a number of treatments to fully kill the colony. (...but I recoil at the thought. I mention it only for completeness.)
• Figure out exactly where the nest is, remove the outer brickwork, remove the nest and rebuild the outer wall. It's a big job, and probably not cheap unless you've got a brickie in the family, but it does mean getting the laying queen out with her offspring, brood and stores.
• Buy a queen, put her in a nuc box (to suit whatever kind of hive they'll be going into) and then get the bees into it. It'll be a long job as emerging bees, nurse bees and so on will remain in the hive for a while, but essentially you're depleting the wall hive of its bees and putting them into a new one with a new queen.

If the bees are killed or removed and the nest stays in place, you'll have a lot of comb and honey still in the cavity which will attract other swarms if they can find a way in. Even with the holes sealed there's still the comb and honey in the wall though.

See this link to see how bees were removed from a dormer in a loft (kill, remove comb and seal access holes):
Gallery
It'll give you an idea of what the comb can be like in a cavity nest.
Scroll down a bit to see it.

Personally I'd be inclined to leave them well alone, but that's just me.

September 2009

Scroll down to "page 4" of the newsletter in that link.

That kind of thing may work, but it's not quick.

We had an experienced bee keeper come last year with his (?)Box, who was a family member of our neighbour, and he left it in situ for them for a fortnight, but the bees from both cavity nests completely ignored it, and he ended up taking the box away. Hence, we still have two cavity nests this year.

You might try making a lot of smoke frequently (and also giving them somewhere else to go). If it gets really smoky repeatedly over a long time they might decide it isn't such a des-res after all, especially if there is a nice alternative not too far away!