Woking Bee Swarms

Sorry this page is not about Prepaid Cards and Emerging Payments but my other love Honey Bees and Bee Swarms.

If you think you have a bee swarm and live close to Woking, Surrey GU21 / GU22 then please give me a call on 07712079307 and I will pop round and pick them up - might even be able to leave you with a jar of nice honey.

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The first question though is do you reall have a honey bee swarm?  Have a look below to make sure what you have is a honey bee swarm:

Honeybees - short hairs, colour darker than a wasp (yellow/brown/grey/black).  About the same size as a wasp, but hairy and not bright yellow.  . From April to September some honeybee colonies may swarm. This is when a whole cloud of bees come over and settle in a tree, hedge, fence, etc for a few days before going off to a new home.  Honeybees may sometimes make a nest in any dry hole in a loft space, chimney, wall or tree. They can be defensive close to the colony entrance.

STOP PRESS IF YOU WANT TO UPLOAD INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING QUEEN CELL PUNCHES CLICK HERE.   

Colours vary from black/brown/grey, often striped with more, or less, dull yellow.   Hairs are shorter than for a bumblebee and commonly has bald patches on some of the stripes. 

Wasps - brighter yellow & hairless.  – Sorry I do not deal with them.

Wasps and Hornets. Bright yellow and no hairs. Usually noticed in the late summer on ripe fruit or nesting in the attic, disused shed, or any dry cavity. All you see are wasps flying to and from a hole in the tiles, gutters or air-brick. 
Wasps sometimes use holes in the ground.

Consider leaving them alone till autumn when the nest will die naturally. They present the greater risk of stings, but can be killed with wasp powder. Make sure you follow the instructions on the packet. Or you can ask a Pest Controler to destroy the nest for you.   Your local council usually has a list or try a search for "Pest & Vermin Control" in various directories.

This is a picture of a wasp and what their nests look like sometimes.

Bumblebees - fatter and very hairy, usually larger than honeybees/wasps, normally will have their nest in the ground.  If you find them and can leave them alone do so.  They will die out at the end of the summer and not come back to the same place.

These are the fat hairy bees that visit your flowers for nectar and pollen, or nest in your compost heap ur under the shed. The nest has only a hundred bees and looks like a pile of brown sheep droppings made of wax and surrounded by a fibrous ball of fluff that was an old mouse nest.   Nests in compost heaps or in the ground are usually bumble bees, but occasionally are