If there was a bee nest in your garden, would you try and get it removed or as bees only use a nest for one season then move on, would you let it stay?

It depends on the situation obviously, if there were small children even though I would want to provide the bees with a home in the garden, I wouldn't want to risk them running into the nest as that could be very dangerous. In some cases though I think that people are too hasty to pay for a nest to be removed thinking that they are dangerous when really if you know where they are and leave them to it they won't bother you at all, and can be very fun to watch.

Wasps and hornets on the other hand are a slightly different matter because they are more aggresive, but I still would always like to see if I could let them stay.

I don't have kids but depending on how old they were, and where the nest was, I would cordon off the area so they were not allowed in there without me and then would would embrace the opportunity to teach them about their facisnating lives and hopefully they will grow up remembering the experince and be nature lovers too.

But this is easy for me to say as I don't have kids.

Unless the nest was so close to the house that I felt it might be a danger I would leave it there. A nest isn't dangerous as long as you know it's there, but I would be worried about a dog running around in the garden if it was on the floor. I suppose it just depends on the situation, but in general I would definitely say yes to keeping the nest.

I have a wasp's nest above the garage right now. It's not in anyone's way, so I'm leaving it be.

Kingfisher

As with the other replies, I would leave the nest if at all possible. I would also imagine that resident bees would be fantastic news for the pollination of flowers in the garden.

And I would also contact the local beekeeping group for advice, especially if there was a possibility of getting them to move into a hive (the bees that is, not the beekeepers ) and take advantage of an abundance of free honey... MMMmmmmm... free honey. They also say that local honey is good for hayfever, and you can't get more local than your own garden.

Sorry to be a spoil sport but I would have to disagree with all of you and get it removed. As my garden is quite small anyway it would affect any area. We also have alot of children in our family so it would be dangerous for them.
Im not an insect kinda gal

Sorry to be a spoil sport but I would have to disagree with all of you and get it removed. As my garden is quite small anyway it would affect any area. We also have alot of children in our family so it would be dangerous for them.
Im not an insect kinda gal

Please tell me how they can be "dangerous" to your children. Do you keep your children wrapped in cotton wool so that they don't have any risks of hurting themselves?

That would be too expensive, imagine how many bags of it I'd have to buy.
I feel it would be dangerous though because with that many bees around its likely that a child would have a higher chance of being stung than if there was no nest. Young children in my family are also curious and tend to poke insects to see what they'll do, which of course is irritating and may cause them to attack. Just one sting could cause the child to go into anaphylactic shock so I'd rather not increase that chance by keeping a nest in my garden.

This post was last modified: 14-08-2007 09:57 AM by sunshine.

Sorry to be a spoil sport but I would have to disagree with all of you and get it removed. As my garden is quite small anyway it would affect any area. We also have alot of children in our family so it would be dangerous for them.
Im not an insect kinda gal

I think that that's a fair comment. In the end it must be a judgement call based upon a number of factors, and I entirely understand your view. As I said, I would leave the nest if at all possible, which implies that there would be circumstances where I would also have it removed.

I'm not sure which side of the fence I fall on. I think it would depend on where it was , what it was & my personal circumstances, like the size of garden & location.
Where I lived when first married in the 70's a queen followed by a swarm settled on next doors house. I was in the yard & looked up to see this massive swarm coming down , I felt the sky was almost black with them. I quickly got the dog & cat in & shut the door. They were all over our kitchen window & the walls of the houses but luckily for me they didn't come my way,
Unfortunately though they got into next doors loft & kept falling down into the babies bedroom near the window. Luckily we had a key for the house as they were away. We contacted the local police who here did hold lists of apiarists & one very police man accompanied by an equally nice apiarist came out to see if he could get the swarm for a new hive. Again unfortunately after many efforts he couldn't get the queen so the whole swarm had to be killed as it couldn't be allowed to stay there.
Skip would somewhat have to agree with sunshine as he is 2 or 3 stings away from having to carry an Epi-Pen as his reactions to being stung has worsened each time & would not want to increase the risk.
We did have a few wasps taking over a bird nesting box last year but the numbers were not great so it wasn't a huge problem.

This post was last modified: 14-08-2007 10:15 AM by tibbar.

I have posted a photo of my wasp's nest in my blog. Riana asked how large I would allow it to get before thinking about removing it, and my reply was that it is almost too big now!

The nest is over the garage door, and every time the garage door is opened now, the wasps are disturbed. They are starting to become alarming. If the nest was in the back garden, I would leave it alone, but I am having to think about removal as it is much larger than when I left prior to my holidays.

Tibbar, that is a frightening story! I had forgotten that a few years ago, I heard an odd sound in the walls of my house. It turned out to be a honeybee colony. Unfortunately, that colony had to be destroyed as they could not be removed without tearing the house apart.

Kingfisher

I'm sure there are less wasps than there were a few years ago - has anyone else noticed this?

According to the news this morning there has been an increase in the number of wasps (no doubt attributed to global warming). However, they must be massing somewhere else because I've seen very few this year.

Every insect has a right to be in my garden - I have had wasp, hornet & bee nests in the past, some even in the eaves of the roof, unless disturbed, they don't really pose a problem.

As for the wasps Timberwolf - it's true, I've hardly seen any this year although I have seen a great influx of hornets who have been hunting & eating butterflies, honey bees & any flying insect they can catch - they patrol the flowers like tigers - I suppose this is normal behavior but no insect book has a description of them being a predator - has anyone else witnessed this behavior?

Bumble or Honey Bees? I thought that honeys are more agressive than bumbles. And that honeys swarm in higher numbers.