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[Campo Girl]

Hola

I have had the following email sent to me from one of our blog users, any advice would be great

Hi
 
This is a bit of a long shot - but can you give us any advice on how to deal with a nest of wild bees in our chimney?
 
We have a house in the campo near Benamargosa (inland from Velez Malaga).
 
We don't want to kill them, in fact we've been advised not to, but would like to get rid of them before we need to light a fire!
 
We'd be grateful for any suggestions.
 
Regards
 
Dave and Marianne Wilson

[suzy]

Out of interest I googled the problem and there was a lot of info out there, this seemed the most humane but obviously you would have to find a helpful beekeeper to provide a queen.   I would assume there must be a beekeepers´ association in Spain who could put them in contact with a local keeper, failing that how about them contacting the British Beekeeping Association who may be able to point them in the right direction.


Step
1

Seal the chimney except for a single entrance at the top.
Step
2

Make a cone out of aluminum fly screen wire. Any light wire with a thin, tight mesh will do. The cone that you make should be about four inches at the bottom and three-eighths of an inch at the top.
Step
3

Put this wire cone over the entrance that you have left for the bees to go in and out of the chimney. Make sure that the hole at the top of the cone is the only way that the bees have of coming and going from your chimney.
Step
4

Place a box hive next to the wire cone escape route. Make sure that it is secure. This hive should have a head start. It should contain a collecting frame, some honey and a queen who has begun laying. You can buy or rent an undeveloped box hive for this purpose.
Step
5

The bees returning to their hive will have a hard time getting inside the chimney because the entrance at the top of the wire cone is so small. They will deposit their honey in the adjoining hive that you have put in place for them.
Step
6

Out of the hundreds of young bees that exit, only a few bees will make it through the small entrance at the top of cone. The rest will deposit their honey in the adjacent hive.
Step
7

Inside the chimney, the queen suffers from the loss of foragers. She slows down and stops laying honey. Meanwhile the nurse bees use the stored honey and pollen until the brood hatches and leave the chimney.
Step
8

Over time the bees, oblivious to the scam you have perpetrated on them, will switch the location of their hive from the chimney to the adjoining box hive.
Step
9

This moving of bees from the chimney to the box hive can take weeks or even months. In the end the chimney should be empty of honey and pollen. The queen will have perished. You can recover the wax.
Step
10

Remove the new hive from the roof and take it somewhere far away.

Hope this may be of help, otherwise the only other solution seems to be either smoking them out or the dreaded pesticide, not a nice option.
Cheers
Suzy

[Liz]

Hi Simone, ref. the wild bees I would have thought a professional bee-keeper would be the obvious answer.      Most local town halls have a department for pest control, before you jump I know bees are not pests, but environmental control people would be the safest way to go instead of climbing on roofs without the appropriate protective clothing.

Hope this might help.

Liz

[Campo Girl]

Thanks for the hlpe guys, I have sent all this information to her and I am hoping she will reply in due course, will keep you posted of course