We moved into our current house (which had been empty for some time) last winter and had two new woodburners fitted, with lined chimneys. Earlier this week I heard bees buzzing in one of the flues and spotted a few stray bees in the stove. I called in a sweep straight away who swept that chimney but said there was no nest material. He also warned me that once you've had them, they are hard to shift.
Since then, I have tried to keep small fires burning in both stoves (as the sweep advised), but the bees keep coming back - you can here buzzing if you put your ear to the flue and see a few round the top of the flue outside.
So I've been reading up since and I understand that honey bees send out small scouting parties at this time of year - which I assume is what we've got, there are a couple of dozen of them, but not hundreds. I also read that they are apparently attracted to the smell of burnt wood - something about forest fires providing good habitat in the wild.
Obviously I'm reluctant to keep fires going indefinitely - what a waste. But also don't want to call in pest control - we need all the bees we can get. I just need to stop them setting up a colony up there. Anyone got any experience or any tips? I can't call in a beekeeper because they only remove swarms and it's not a swarm. Yet.