Getting rid of bee's

[Ghoste]

And no, they aren't the Dodge kind, they are the Bumble variety.  There is a hive of the little striped buggers under my deck by the pool and I'm worried about the kids getting stung and the damage they'll do to the wood deck.  I hate the idea of killing them because they are such a beneficial and necessary insect but I can't have them living by the pool.  I can't call an exterminator because in Canadakistan, they won't get rid of bees, they're protected (at least they are where I live).
Is there any way to drive them nuts so they'll just move or am I limited to a couple of afternoons with a case of beer and few cans of brake cleaner and laying in wait by the entrance to the hive?

[Dave22443]

I'm no expert here (I use carb cleaner  ) but I am wondering if one of those plug-in sonic pest repellers might help?   

Of course, that might just make'em mad 

Seriously though, here's some information for you:
http://msucares.com/newsletters/pests/bugwise/2005/bw0405.pdf

[Guns N Rotors]

I use a shop vac on them. Tape the nozzle near their hole,
turn on the vac and grab a beer. It's big fun!

[kab69440]

I've been fighting those fat-axx, flying termites for a couple of years now. Every time I think I've killed them all, The next warm spell brings more of them out. I hate those things.  I guess the next step is to pull the entire gutterboard off the garage this winter.

[Khyron]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhW3tk17Y_M&feature=related

[Ghoste]

Thanks guys.  I gave 'em hell today with the beer and brake clean method but I'll follow up tomorrow with a little shop vac and some insect dust after.

[terrible one]

Man, I remember about a year ago, a guy that I was working with and myself came across a wasp nest. He had some king of POTENT home made parts cleaning stew that he splashed on it, and that was that! Every one of them dropped to the ground and died! Pretty wild

[RallyeMike]

If they are bees and accessible , a local bee keeper may take it away..... free.

[Ghoste]

Unfortunately they aren't accessible without dismantling the deck.

[Slantback_66]

Hey Ghoste,

Get an empty plastic container: such as an old butter container or something like that and fill it halfway with dish soap and on top of the dishsoap add a 1/8" to a 1/4" of Mountain Dew. The Bees go nuts over the sugar in the Mountain Dew and get stuck in the dishsoap only to die a slow and agonizing death.

John

[WingCharger]

Do it at night! 

[Old Moparz]

I don't usually evict bees or any kind of wasp or hornet unless there's a danger of getting stung, like near the doorway on the house or in a place like the pool deck you mentioned. About 2 years ago I had the same bee problem with a nest under my deck. It was right near where we have the picnic table, so it was way too close for comfort. The biggest issue was that it was under the part of the deck that's closest to the ground where you couldn't look under to see it. Judging from the amount of bees coming & going, I knew the nest had to be huge.

The only way to see, was to actually lay down on your back & stick your head under the deck face up. That meant your face would be about 10 to 12 inches from the nest.     Late that night, I taped a small mirror to a stick, got a flashlight, & went out when they were in the nest & not buzzing around. (You can save the mirror on the stick to look up skirts later.) The nest was in between two joists directly under the decking & hard to reach. The next day I bought 2 spray bomb cans of bug spray, the type that they call foggers that spray upward instead of sideways, & keep spraying until they empty.

I set up a plank of wood, duct taped the fogger cans that spray upward to the plank so they wouldn't tip, set them directly under the nest, then triggered the cans to spray, & ran indoors like a kid running from the boogeyman.    The next day I saw no bee activity, so I suppose the fogger cans soaked the nest & killed off the bees. I used the mirror on the stick again to look under the deck, & saw that the nest was almost the size of a football & made from what resembled gray colored paper. I never got stung, so it was a small victory, & sometimes I get the stick with the mirror out on the days my wife has a skirt on.   

[nh_mopar_fan]

A few years ago, I was cutting my lawn with a hand mower and stuck it under a decent sized rhododendron that was just outside the front door. I got stung. I glanced under the think and there was a basketball sized nest hanging there. It was no more than 5 ft from the front door and competely hidden.

Once it got dark, I grabbed some charcoal lighter fluid. Hit it with some fuid and threw a match.

Man, that was fun. It didn't even do any permanent damage to the plant.

[moparstuart]

A few years ago, I was cutting my lawn with a hand mower and stuck it under a decent sized rhododendron that was just outside the front door. I got stung. I glanced under the think and there was a basketball sized nest hanging there. It was no more than 5 ft from the front door and competely hidden.

Once it got dark, I grabbed some charcoal lighter fluid. Hit it with some fuid and threw a match.

Man, that was fun. It didn't even do any permanent damage to the plant.

they did that crazy shit on the second season of OCC  but i think they used gasoline !

[bull]

Smoke. I don't know how long you'd have to pour it on to get them to leave but I know they don't like smoke.

[Drache]

If they are wasps Canadian Tire sold these things that you hung up which looked like Wasp nests. Wasps are supposed to be very territorial and wont make a nest within a certain distance of another wasp nest or so the package reads. Anyways my friend bought a set and put on in the front yard and one in the back and still hasn't seen a wasp for the past couple years!

[Dave22443]

All these stories reminded me of my own.

I have a large grassy area that I cut "occasionally" as needed.  Out in the middle of the field is a large cedar tree.  I keep the bottom of it trimmed up so I can easily ride the mower under it.  As I was making my passes cutting the grass one day, I just happened to look up into the cedar tree and spotted the big gray nest. 

It was about twice the size of a basket ball and about 20 feet up in the tree.  No way I could reach it with spray or dust but there also was no way I was going to leave it up there.  After all, I had grass to mow and the hornets were already showing signs of agitation at the mower still several passes away. 

After several minutes of thought and consultation with a friend,    we hatched a plan.    We drove my pickup out into the field and positioned it for a perfect line of sight.     Close, but not too close.  We opened the doors of the truck (which we bravely stood behind) and rolled up all the windows.  Then, he with the Remington 1100 and me with the Mossberg 590, each without plugs and holding several rounds of #8 bird shot, took careful aim.

3... 2... 1...  FIRE!!!   

We each cranked off two rounds, both scoring perfect hits.  Instantly the air filled with shredded nest, peices of cedar branches and hunderds of pissed off hornets!   

Meanwhile, we both dove into the truck and slammed the doors shut like the brave souls we were 

After about 10 minutes, the hornets finally quit trying to sting the truck and returned to their broken nest.  When the time was right, the doors flew open again and more rounds were pumped into the nest.  This time, most of the hornets were heavily concentrated around the damaged area and when the next volley came through, most did not survive. (I could almost see the tiny buckshot splattering all those bee guts all over the place)

Only a dozen or so hornets came after us this time before quickly returning to the nest.  The next time we stepped out, it was all over.  My buddy fired first, ripping what little was left of the nest in half.  Then I fired and knocked both halves deeper into the tree.  That was followed by BANG-BANG! BANG-BANG! *Click-Click*

With smoke drifting from both barrels, we watched the shredded branches and nest fragments fall to the ground.  There was now a large hole in the side of my cedar tree (that would take two years to fill back in) but the nest was gone and so were the hornets.

Havent had a probem since!   

[jeryst]

You should try to find out what they are before doing anything. If they are honeybees, try to have someone remove them as they are dying off at a rapid rate because of some parasite or disease. Once the honeybees go, so do all of our crops, flowers, and plants.

Hornets and wasps serve no useful purpose, so feel free to do whatever you want. I had some wasps infoltrate the house last year. They crawled in under the siding, and found a small hole around the pipe that connects to the outside water meter. That allowed them to get into the house and buss around the basement. I tried all kinds of things on them, but most were either ineffective, or extremely poisonout to people and pets. One day, one came up into the main part of the house, and I grabbed the closes thing, which happened to be a spray bottle of cleaner called "Mean Green" that my wife bought at the dollar store. The wasp dropped like a rock. I took the stuff down in the basement and found a couple more flying around, so I hit them with the stuff, and once again, they instantly dropped dead. Worked great, and it was only like $1.00 for a big bottle.

[moparstuart]

I will take any super bee's you wanna get rid of !

[Ghoste]

They are bumblebees, I have no doubt about that.  I grew up on an apple orchard so I am very familiar with the necessity of pollinating insects (incidentally, wasps and hornets serve a purpose too but that is inconsequetnial to all of this).  The deck is tight to the ground and there is no way to reach them without dismantling the deck.  I don't mean taking a board off, I mean taking a huge section of it entirely apart.  I would love to save them but there is no way to do it.  Exterminators will not do it here and smoking them doesn't drive them away, it makes them dopey enough to handle and for a beekeeper to remove them I would be back to taking the deck apart.  They are hidden up in a section to which I have no access to slip a fogger or anything else to.  They have an entrance which is about six feet away from the steps going down into our pool and traffic from the kids tends to be high there so they absolutley MUST go.  The entrance they have is about one inch wide and 1/2 inch high.  I am killing them one at a time and have set insecticidal dust in the entrance.  Hopefully this will stop the problem.  Hate to kill off a beneficial insect but that's how it's going to be in this case.

[Old Moparz]

I am killing them one at a time and have set insecticidal dust in the entrance. 

Well, if you have the patience for a one at a time method......    

If you have other things to do, why not set the nozzle of the shop vac right at the bee entrance & leave it on. Maybe by the end of the day the entire (herd, swarm, colony, gaggle, etc.) will be gone. I doubt they're smart enough to wonder why their buddies aren't returning & may just peek outside to see where they are & WHOOOOOSH! they get sucked out.   

[jeryst]

If you suck them up in a shop vac, does that kill them, or do you just wind up with a shop vac full of mad bees?

[Old Moparz]

If you suck them up in a shop vac, does that kill them, or do you just wind up with a shop vac full of mad bees?

I bet you could have a lot of fun with a vac-o-bees.   

[71_deputy]

on the farm we had the all sorts of fun with them- some we left alone and others where we work, by the work shop etc. one year the buggers built a nest under the broken slabs of concrete floor- well after been stung a few times it was time to act.

best way was get a spray bottle- like the ones for water plants- then fill it with gas- use the squirt setting- stops them in their tracks- this went on for weeks- but we went through a couple of gallons- butta been a big nest under there- finally none left!!!

[69chargeryeehaa]

at night when they are all in their nest, spray it down with WD-40, they will all die, and they won't come back.  It's the best stuff i've ever found that kills them and doesn't make them come back.....

[skip68]

If you suck them up in a shop vac, does that kill them, or do you just wind up with a shop vac full of mad bees?

I bet you could have a lot of fun with a vac-o-bees.   

Maybe you should hook up one of those ol' "Flow-Bee" haircut things to it!  Chop the little bastards up!!!
Mrs.Skip68

[CaptMarvel]

Not that this applys to your circumstance, but several years ago, I noticed a hive in my chimmney. After local bee keepers showed no interest and spray killers just made them mad, I decided to start a fire (thought was to smoke em out) it worked great...they all started popping like popcorn and 100s fell dead to my hearth, which I promptly vacumned up. Let me tell you, starting a fire in Fresno in July was wanting to get rid of those pests bad!

[Guns N Rotors]

If you suck them up in a shop vac, does that kill them, or do you just wind up with a shop vac full of mad bees?

It stuns the the hell out of them. I turn on the vac and watch the bees
come out to defend the nest. As soon as they get near the nozzle, the
party's over for 'em. Keep the vac running until the action stops. It takes 
20 minutes or so. When I'm done, I open the lid to the vac and unload
a can of wasp & hornet spray on them and close the lid. Give them
another 20 minutes and dump them in a garbage bag.

It works great!

[A383Wing]

If they are bumble bees...I do not believe they sting...because of no stingers......most places down here are trying to find out what happened to all the bees around here...something is killing them off here, at least that's what I have heard....

Bryan

[Big Lebowski]

I use a shop vac on them. Tape the nozzle near their hole,
turn on the vac and grab a beer. It's big fun!

  That's a good one

[Ghoste]

As far as not stinging...

http://www.bumblebee.org/bodySting.htm