A question for anyone who keeps bees or even knows about them.

iqoniq

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Many moons ago my parents had some bees setup a nest in their bedroom. Long story short, I was meant to be watching the house, but gave my sister the keys because I was out at the weekend and she opened their bedroom window on the Friday to air the room a bit, forgot about it and when she went back on Monday it was bee central. Surprisingly, my parents weren't fazed at all, and they just carried on regardless and probably because they didn't bother the bees, they didn't bother my parents, and on odd occasions they'd even land on my parents around the house and just chill (while everyone else is thinking they've lost the plot and are staying as far away as possible).

Around 2007, I moved into a house that had beehives nearby, and the bees used to do the same, and I discovered they seemed to like being gently stroked. While I hate wasps and hornets who'll just sting you for the fun of it, I know with bees it's a last resort defence mechanism and they'll act altruistically for the sake of the colony. They weren't at all aggressive with me*, and I'm usually of the view that I prefer to let all things live than kill them because they're an occasional nuisance (at the end of the day they're just doing what they need to do and don't mean to annoy me).

On YouTube I've just seen this ( ) and I'm wondering how the girl does unprotected contact. I spoke to a beekeeper years ago, and he said around bees protection is essential because they can go absolutely nova if one assumes the colony is under attack and the rest will join in as well.

What I want to know is, given that the woman is introducing herself to a strange bee colony completely unprotected why aren't they swarming and trying to see off the threat? She does wear some face protection at one point in the video, but for the large part she's completely uncovered. Also, can you become immune to bee venom so you don't feel it as much or at all? It just amazes me how she's handling them and they're just like "Yeah, cool!" as opposed to getting defensive.

I'm not planning on bothering bees anytime soon, but I'd love to know.

* - That place was like a wildlife reserve. I had a huge garden (it went around the side and you could have built 3-5 houses on it complete with their own gardens as well), with loads of insects, arachnids and other creatures that shouldn't have got on with one another, but did. I remember watching some ants on a forage, and a spider colony that shared the decking where they lived didn't seem to be bothered at all (one got caught up in a web and the spider actually freed it as opposed to killing it). I don't know whether they all managed to come to some sort of equilibrium, or were just so used to the others that they viewed them as part of an extended family or something. If there was one place I could move back to, it would be there.
 
We had some bees once setup in our house and the pest control guy just basically said to leave them alone as they were in an unused chimney and getting them out was going to be an expensive effort and they would move off in a while anyway (which they did)

If you can visit the local councils pest control dept as they'll probably have a wasps nest 6ft across or bigger they've recovered from a job.
 
Hi iqoniq,

One of my neighbours (who's 76) keeps bees in his back garden and produces absolutely delicious clear raw honey, close to being the best honey I've ever had the pleasure of eating. He goes on long walks every day, so next time I see him going past my bungalow I'll flag him down and see what he says.

Another way you could find out would be to order a jar or two of honey from one of the very many UK local small-scale beekeepers who sell their own produce, and ask them your question at the same time.

Expect to pay a minimum of £7-8 plus p&p for a 340g jar. I wouldn't pay over £14 for 800g of raw organic honey personally, but some honeys (on Amazon) are an horrendous price and not worth it IMO.
 
If you can visit the local councils pest control dept as they'll probably have a wasps nest 6ft across or bigger they've recovered from a job.
I've seen them. When I was with my first wife we moved to a house and the garden was like a jungle. We levelled it all, and got it nice, and decided to build a gazebo where there was a dead tree stump. When we managed to uproot it there was the mother of all wasps nests more less underneath it. It was abandoned/dead, but her dad still torched it just to be on the safe side.

Expect to pay a minimum of £7-8 plus p&p for a 340g jar. I wouldn't pay over £14 for 800g of raw organic honey personally, but some honeys (on Amazon) are an horrendous price and not worth it IMO.
I usually get manuka honey if ever I get it. It's not something my housemate or I like to be honest, and the only time I get it is if she's coming down with something to make honey, lemon and black pepper (tastes gross but seems to work). The other half jar ends up in char siu marinade just so it doesn't go to waste. Having said that, my maternal grandmother was German and she used to go a bundle on the cloudy honey and it did taste nice on her home made waffles.

My mum has been on about taking the grandkids for a day out so I may suggest Liverpool museum. The natural history team have (or at least had) a beehive at the top of the museum outside the window to the café.
 
< snip> My mum has been on about taking the grandkids for a day out so I may suggest Liverpool museum. The natural history team have (or at least had) a beehive at the top of the museum outside the window to the café.

I had no idea there was a beehive at the top of the museum, and I used to go in there frequently as a distraction (until I got bored wiith it) when I was farmed out to the library next door, working in their public computer room. There's an interconnecting door system between the library and the museum which saves climbing up all those steps and avoids the crowds at the front. If only I'd known!

Anyway, I checked up and it's not there any more, or if it is they're keeping quiet about it, and the café is now on the ground floor - Café at Museum of Liverpool.

There's 80,000 bees in apiaries on the top of the Barclays Bank overlooking Lord Street, but they don't seem to be open to the general public. Perhaps you could speculatively call Barclays and ask if you/your Mum and the grandkids could visit the bees on your day out?
 
Oh Central Library has a very special place in my childhood. Somehow, a rumour started amongst my friends, that the big reading room had a spiral staircase that opened of an evening and went down to a secret train station, and took you to some military base. We actually tried to hide in the place one night before being shooed out. I was about 10 so it was still perfectly plausible at the time, and please don't shatter my childhood by telling me there isn't a secret train station or base.

I keep forgetting they've changed the museum since I last went (cafe was definitely top floor), and it seems to have lost it's charm. It was a place that you used to be able to lose yourself in and a visit would take at least half a day. The basement used to have a load of old steam trains, trams and cars in it, but it was hidden and most people only found out about it by passing through the vivarium, and curiosity about a seemingly empty passage not fenced off.

If it happened it would be of a weekend because my mum still works, and I can't see Barclays opening up on a Saturday or Sunday, never mind letting her and the kids on a roof.

Funnily enough, I'm half German (dad's side) and on BBC World Service, radio there's a trailer for a show about search histories and what we can learn from them. Apparently, last year, one of the most searched for things in Germany was how long bees live for. Maybe it a Germanic thing.
 

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