£1000 paid to remove bees from roof 2 weeks ago. We now have bees again.

[maureenponderosa]

AIBee-ing Unreasonable?

YABU - calm down, pay again and trust the beekeeper
YANBU - get a second opinion

Any bee experts here?

We had bees in our roof a few weeks ago. They were going in through the tiles and building comb between the tiles and the membrane. Paid over £1000 for scaffolding and bee removal. The nice beekeeper man put the tiles back on the roof for us.

Unfortunately, he didn't finish cementing up the tiles on the side of the gable (right at the apex of the roof), leaving a fairly decent-sized hole (I think 30cm across and 4cm high).

We noticed last Friday that we had a lot of Scout bees going in and out of this hole. We tried covering this hole with a towel but bees were still able to go in through there, but were now also trying to get in through vents (which have got grills on the other side to prevent bees getting into the loft) and between our roof tiles.

By Sunday, the whole swarm had returned. On Monday, the beekeeper came and said there's no rescuing these bees. He cemented up the hole and put poison in the vents.

It's now Tuesday and there are still a lot of bees trying to get in by any means. What started as them trying to get in through a gap left by the beekeeper/bee remover man, has ended up with them trying to invade by any means necessary.

The beekeeper man has said he'll come back and put down more poison and put grills on the outside, but now I'm worried: have these bees left us open to more swarms coming back?

Questions for any bee experts:
Will the remaining bees be building honey comb that could damage our house?
Will the bees have left bee pheromones that will attract more bees to come to our roof?
We've only just moved in but if we're on the hook to spend £1k a month on bee removal, we'll have to sell up.
Is this our cost to carry, considering this new swarm initially made their home in the hole that he left, even though they are now trying to get in through other ways?

I don’t think you’re allowed to poison bees.
Happy to be corrected if that’s not true.

You absolutely are allowed to poison bees. It's actually rarer to find someone to rescue them and cost can be prohibitive even if you care about the bees.

A thousand pounds!
A colony of bees costs between £2-300 to buy so the bee keeper did well here.
Hopefully the majority of the cost was scaffolding.

If there’s poison down they will disperse eventually but can take a while.
They might be attracted by any left over honey if it wasn’t completely cleared the first time.

It’s the beekeeper is at fault for not cementing the tiles properly.

Can't you just leave them be? Or contact the British Beekeepers to arrange recovery. They're bees, not hornets or wasps

How on earth is anyone voting YABU!

More than half was for the beekeeper. He had to buy some materials for putting the roof back together but did a rubbish job, both in terms of leaving the huge gap and that it looks bad.

He can’t just leave them FGS! It’s a horrible problem to have, and needs sorting now!

I'd deffo not pay any more money

He should finish the job

Depends where they are whether you can leave them be. I ended up with bees swarming in my living room so they had to go.

Retrieving them when they have made themselves at home in a wall can cost thousands. And if every scrap of honey isn't removed the bees will always know it's a lovely place to live and keep coming back.

The last lot had eaten through the membrane in the roof. Honey would have caused rotting.
Definitely couldn’t have left them.

I’m so worried that this new lot are going back under the tiles and we’ll have to pay for scaffolding again.

Here’s the repair work he did on Monday.

Why would you not just leave the bees?

We had wasps in our extension roof and someone from the local authority came and dealt with them free of charge. Privately owned property. Maybe that’s just in my area.

God that's terrible work OP. Was this a standard beekeeper or one fully insured and trained in the building work as well as beekeeping?

The latter are rare and expensive.

Our bees were in a shared chimney and when we and our neighbours saw the cost of saving the bees it just wasn't feasible. I've had a whole kitchen fitted for less than was quoted for the bees

You've been stung

It's not a beekeepers job to make your roof bee proof. We had to have wasps removed twice from ours last year but until we paid to have our roof fixed (membrane and gaps on th apex were the issue) they kept returning.

Don’t kill the bees! Terrible bee removal, they most likely left the queen behind/did not remove all the brood. Please get another one but not for 1k, just please don’t kill the bees if you can help it :(

I'm assuming they are definitely honey bees?

If so, I dont think you can leave them in roof spaces, sadly, due to damage. I'd be calling pest control, explaining beekeeper couldnt remove them.
After they're dead, spray almond oil / put as much clove oil in the gap as you can. That should deter future bees from taking up residence.
Then get a proper tradesman in to sort out the mess the beekeeper left!

Any recommendations for what our next steps are?

He's said he's going to come back but I think this new swarm will have left their mark, be it honey or pheromones, which will undoubtedly attract another swarm in the future.

In his first attempt, he removed lots of the tiles, (apparently) removed all of the comb and honey, (apparently) applied a poison that would kill the nice attractive pheromone smell, and re-did the tiles.

This time, there will be no tile removal, therefore no comb removal (if it is present) and no liberal poison application.

I feel so anxious about this, my husband said I was sleepwalking in the night saying I was going to "get onto the roof to spray the bees". I do have form for being insane in my sleep, and this is not really the problem of a beekeeper, no matter how poor his workmanship was on the roof, but it's affecting my mental health.

We've been quoted £3500 to get rid of ours! So we've left them to it.

Now they aren't swarming any more I don't mind.

We have them in a space above and below a window. Two swarms. Listed building. Very high up so specialist scaffold needed.

Our beekeeper said they can't give any guarantees but they would have sealed the space and added material to deter future swarms.

It is if they quote to repair it!

Our quote was specialist scaffold, and remove roof/make good after.

I’ve not dealt with bees, just wasps, but surely leaving the combs in situ is a bad idea?! If there’s honey in them, it’ll drip down over time and attract other insects. It’s also a risk to the wider environment because other bees will be attracted to the toxic honey left behind and will then go back home, unknowingly contaminating other hives in the area.

£3500- scary price!

It is his job if she’s bloody paid him to 🙄