£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 think I would get a roofer to come out and look and, if necessary, quote for making your roof whole and bee-proof. You would need to warn them there might be bees in residence though. I feel your bee-man hasn't completed the work you paid him for but wouldn't trust him to put it right to an acceptable standard. Such a nightmare for you.

Why wouldn't you just leave them alone?

We had a swarm/colony a few years ago. They never bothered us and were gone in a year. I have an epi-pen as I am very allergic to bee stings, but you really have to go out of your way to piss off a bee!

Now wasps/hornets I could understand, but why would you poison bees?

We had a swarm in the roof that the bee keeper couldn't remove, as the queen was too deeply embedded. We tried everything from living with them (that doesn't work) to filling the holes with expanding foam (doesn't work) to smoking them out with incense (guess what...)

We were not able to pay for work to the roof and neither the bee keeper nor our insurer suggested we do so. In the end after weeks and weeks of trying everything the bee keeper said to eradicate them. She suggested putting ant powder at the entrance and that the bees would track it to the queen. We did and the problem was resolved and they never came back

I've asked him about removing the comb and he said he'd have to remove the roof and cut the air brick out to do this (presumably requiring scaffolding again). Then he said that the best thing to do is to block the vent/air brick from the outside and put more poison down.

I'm just not convinced that this is the best course of action. Surely we need to remove the comb.

It is a literal nightmare. New roof would be far too expensive.

Thank you for this advice. I'll see if I can do this. Will require me to scramble onto one of our single storey pitched roofs and be very dextrous with some long bamboo canes. But I will do anything at this point.

Because they will be wrecking the roof. Eating the membrane and honey rotting the timber. I love bees. I also love having a roof over my family's head.

I can’t believe you would poison bees. Who does that? We have had a couple of swarms in the chimney (rural) and a local beekeeper took them away.

I can’t believe you are killing bees.

Our local beekeeper is killing them! It's his recommendation.

Would you be able to pay £1000 a month to remove recurring bee hives in your roof? Would you be able to pay £150,000 for a new roof because bees have destroyed the existing one?

What would you do?

Why would a new roof be £150,000? Is that what you've been quoted?

My daughter had this in a vent . Called Bee Keeper Association and within an hour sone very nice man came . He removed the bees he could with whatever they use and put them in a hive in his van . But they had to wait until he was sure he got the queen as he said otherwise they would come back . The few remaining just got dusted with something . So no bees anymore .

You employed him to remove bees from your roof and repair . He did not do that . Can you cancel the payment and try someone else .

Fair enough, I've got no idea how much a new roof costs, but whether it costs £5000 or £150,000, we don't have the money to do it. And we could do all of that and still have bees. I doubt any builder would guarantee their work against bees.

We had a swarm in our loft a few years back. They got into the partition wall between the bathroom and bedroom - you could hear the buzzing if you put your ear to the wall.
The insect chap that came round said it was best to leave them - they'd probably go at some point over the summer and not come back... which was exactly what happened. They all went and have never been back since.

Shocked at the people saying live with them, bees swarming is fucking terrifying and life threatening, before you even get to the damage of your property.

of course you have them removed or killed.

we had them in the upstairs I think, honey started to come through the wall and it started to bow. Them they moved to the neighbours and were coming out a gap by their chimney, so many of them, it’s terrifying. Ours moved on I think don’t want to jinx it, but no, no one living with thousands of bees swarming thinks wow let’s keep that I luffs bees me.

Well we are living with them. Simply to expensive to remove them. Two colonies one above and below an overhanging window.

My husband is a roofer and has worked on jobs with pest control in the past. He strips the roof as much as he can, pest control remove the pest (bees, wasps, squirrels, rats, etc) destroy the nest. Then he roofs it back in properly so less chance of them coming back. More to the process than that, but that's the short version.

Might be worth seeing if you can find a local roofer willing to work alongside the bee keeper.

Tell your bee removal man , and give him the opportunity to put it right. if it doesn't get put right (without extra cost) then take you bee man to thde small claims court- you had a contract with the bee man for him to get rid of the bees, and that hasn't happened, so you have the right to restitution.

We happily live with bees in an outside vent (so presumably they live in the cavity wall) - they were there for two or three years, then swarmed and left, and later the current ones moved in and have been there for a couple of years, presumably at some point they will swarm and leave too. They cause us no trouble at all and don't even come into our garden as their hive is high up and they enter and leave the area already at that altitude. The time they swarmed we thought it was fascinating and took lots of photos from a safe distance, but by the time a local beekeeper had arrived to collect them they had already moved on.

No beekeepers in the UK would poison bees. I wonder if that even counts as a wildlife crime?
You've been conned by a scum rogue trader. Leave the bees.

I was coming on to say this. You need a proper roofer to fix gaps and bee/ pest control to poison or evict the bees

I had bees in the roof of a very crumbly rental a while back…had been telling the landlord for a while and asking him to explore options because there was brown fluid dripping through the roof. Eventually they swarmed on a day the neighbours were having a children’s party and the land lord was out. The BKA were amazing but not able to help because the swarm was dissipating by then but half the colony remained…turns out the clicking in the walls is been hearing was 2 queens trying to kill each other. Aside from the ethics of killing the bees, he was clear that leaving the comb in the roof would attract mice & whatever else likes honey.

Well he didn't did he, as theyve buggered off back to the OPs house.

I know someone had bees in their roof for so long they had honey dripping down their internal walls. Definitely do not leave bees in your roof.

I had this, the bees were getting in under the tiles, but also were trying to get in through the garage/workshop, there were just massive numbers dying in the garage, ( I was sweeping them up) ejecting their pollen/goo. It was carnage. The ceiling in the garage (which was also the laundry room& joined to the kitchen) was oozing.
The beeman said he needed to remove all the tiles over a massive area. Or remove all the plaster board in the “garage”
They were more or less harmless, but you had to walk through hundreds to get in or out of the kitchen, so not for the faint of heart
Finally after trying to smoke them, & catch some, putting pheromones etc.
he put poison? & we sealed up the access under the tiles.
The comb was over 5 metres long between the tiles & the insulationn/plasterboard.
we didnt remove it. After a while it stopped dripping.
but my God what a mess.

Bees won’t eat the membrane or do any damage to timbers. Yes, they may build comb if they are honey bees. It is wasps that do damage.

I would leave them alone for now. We’re in peak swarming season so even if you get rid of them again you may get more back or they may leave of their own volition.

People saying leave the bees to it: that honey comb gets bigger every year. The damage the wax and honey do to a house is considerable. Leaving any in there is likely to attract other pests in the future in the unlikely event that a full swarm leaves.

And swarms don't tend to leave in full. A new queen will emerge, but the losing one will take half the hive and leave, allowing the rest to stay put. Bees also don't die off over winter.

Some swarms are aggressive. The one I had was, and just being near the front entrance of my house left you at risk of being stung. The garden was unusable.

OP, you need combined beekeepers, pest control and a roofer. Most reputable beekeepers will refuse to remove bees from houses because they aren't insured for the damage they cause to buildings when they try to remove a swarm. Pest control will deal with leftover honey comb and ensure entry points are sealed so nothing returns. You need a roofer to sort out the mess that beekeeper did to your house.

Poison was the worst option. It won't solve the structural damage your house will experience from honey comb, even in the unlikely event the bees will not just chew their way out of the roof space into, say, your bedroom.