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I have a chair full of bees
Drake Chambers
Lay out my formal shorts.Registered User regular
Lay out my formal shorts.Registered User regular
We have a folding chair on our back porch that has become a nest for what look like standard honeybees. My wife had noticed an increase in bee activity on the porch and in searching for the source I observed half a dozen crawling in and out of the holes on the crossbars of the chair legs.
I don’t want to harm the bees, but I also don’t want their nest on my porch. If I wait until tonight when it’s dark and cool and move the chair to another part of the yard, will they try to kill me?
I don’t want to harm the bees, but I also don’t want their nest on my porch. If I wait until tonight when it’s dark and cool and move the chair to another part of the yard, will they try to kill me?
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Are you sure they are bees and not wasps? Nobody wants asshole wasps.
We have yellow jackets around here too and these aren’t those jerks.
(Apiarist is another word for beekeeper)
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It's one of these:
You can just barely see the holes in the underneathy part of the crossbar. Once through there I imagine they have access to a lot of cozy chair-tube.
I bundled up with gloves and a hat and watched the chair for a minute. It was after nine, dark and in the low 50's. I gingerly picked it up, rapidly heel-toed it across the yard to put it behind a forsythia bush, then sprinted back into the house. I don't know if they reacted at all but I didn't get stung. That part of our yard should be a much happier place for bees, I'm happy to have bees in our yard, and we'll be able to eat on the back porch without bees getting all-up-ons.
The End.
(Thanks for the ideas!)
Also, you might want to make sure they aren't Africanized, or killer, bees, which would be bad news.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Or they might not be honeybees (like ceres says) - there are lots of species of native bees in the US that don't build large hives. Most are pretty docile.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
I'll probably do some follow-up with local bee people, mostly out of curiosity and a desire to let these bees do what they do.
The only thing is that those nests are so damn fragile that if that's what they are then moving the chair around a bunch is going to wreck a lot of hard work.
This is the video I took, there are a few main varieties and this is the palest. Leafcutters are native to the US, I think just about everything else was introduced at some point or other. Full screen for best results.
My recommendations are call your local entomology or university extension department to see if someone can come and get them (if they are honey bees) or if they can suggest control strategies if they aren't honey bees.
Or, just let them have the chair, I guess?
Just to jump on the feel good in this thread - just today I had to explain that I learned how to strip and refinish my cedar deck, build my gaming PC, and got great suggestions of what to do in LA for 72 hours all from the same place.
forums.penny-arcade.com
I love SciShow and I love leafcutter bees so this made me happy, although frankly I can take or leave alfalfa so personally I'd rather see that dude's efforts spent elsewhere. :P
That, and topics like "I have a chair full of bees". It's pure poetry.
The video I'm thinking of is way more detailed and explains how to clean out your nests year to year to keep it a healthy place for bee friends. If I find it I'll post it as well.
Edit: This one is more detailed but also a bit more work. Still not the video I'm thinking of, though:
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"