How To Keep Bees Away From Your House

Gardeners know that all kinds of bees are good for our flower and vegetable gardens. They’re responsible for pollinating crops as varied as almonds, apples, blackberries, blueberries, melons, squash, cranberries, and forage crops. We want and need these industrious, little workers. But sometimes bees get a little too close to home for comfort.

Most of the time, bees do their own thing, foraging for food and raising a colony. But if a nest is too close to your house—or even be in the walls of your house—you must take action. “You can’t put your family or pets in jeopardy, especially if someone in your family has a bee allergy,” says Becky Griffin, pollinator health associate with the University of Georgia's Great Southeast Pollinator Census. “But learning about the insects in your landscape will help you understand how you need to respond.”

Here's how to co-exist with bees—and know when you need to have a nest removed.

Identify Your Bees

The first step is to identify the insects correctly, says Griffin. Bees are hairy with stout bodies and wide, flat hind legs for carrying pollen; you can often see the pollen grains sticking to them. However, it’s easy to mistake bees for other insects, such as social wasps, including yellow jackets and paper wasps. Wasps often are more problematic and aggressive and require a different approach to manage.

Many bees are solitary and nest in the ground, in hollow stems, or in abandoned rodent burrows, so they don’t usually present an issue. But European honey bees are social with established colonies consisting of 40,000 or more bees, and they may nest in buildings. These honey bees are not aggressive, though they will defend the nest if they perceive a threat. On the other hand, Africanized honey bees, which look very similar but are more aggressive, have been found in parts of the South.

Carpenter bees are another issue: These large, solitary bees neatly drill holes in wood siding and trim that cause cosmetic, but usually not serious, damage to your house.

What To Do About Honeybee Swarms

Honey bee colonies reproduce by swarming. When a colony becomes too large, the old queen and half the bees head to the new location in a flying swarm. Although it looks scary, a swarm typically is focused on finding its new home, not on what you’re doing in your garden, says Griffin. The swarm may settle on a tree branch temporarily until the scout bees find a suitable new home.

The best thing to do is to leave the swarm alone, keep pets and people away from it, and wait it out. A swarm usually relocates to a new location within 24 hours. Bees often select a hollow tree for their new home, but they’ll also nest in a wall or attic, says Griffin.

If the swarm enters your home or other structure such as a shed, contact a professional pest control or beekeeper immediately to eliminate the nest. This is not a DIY project because the bees may nest some distance from where they entered the structure, so spraying insecticides at the entry will not kill the colony.  If you attempt to spray the bees themselves, it will kill those contacted but they’ll release an alarm pheromone, which calls the rest of the colony to attack. Also, don’t block their entry point because they’ll find another way out, which could be inside your home.

If you wait too long after bees set up a new home in your attic or wall, they will build combs and store honey, which is a much bigger job to remove. For established colonies, the entire nest, combs, and honey must be removed. Contact your local cooperative extension service immediately. They may be able to refer you to local beekeeping organizations that can remove and relocate the colony, though it is not always practical, says Griffin.

Determine If Africanized Honey Bees Are A Risk

Africanized honey bees (AHB) are the same species as the more docile European honey bees managed by beekeepers here in the U.S., but they’re much more aggressive. It’s impossible to identify AHBs by appearance, but their behavior is different.

AHBs nest in small spaces, including water meter boxes, cement blocks, eaves, and overturned flower pots. If a nest is disturbed, European honey bees send out five to 10 bees and may chase you up to 20 feet; an AHB colony may send out hundreds of bees as far away as 40 yards from the colony, and they may pursue an intruder up to 400 yards. They also swarm multiple times per year, versus European honey bees, which swarm once a year.

To date, AHBs have been found in several Southern states, including parts of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Florida. Contact your university cooperative extension agent to learn if they’ve become a problem in your area, and then ask a qualified pest control company for help.

What To Do About Ground Bees

According to Griffin, many bees nest in the ground, and in the spring, you may see small mounds of soil where ground bees are building nests in your lawn. Ground nesting bees are not aggressive because they are solitary and won’t harm your lawn. It’s also unlikely you’ll be stung because the males don’t have stingers and the females are busy building a nest, where they will lay eggs, seal it up, and then die. Her offspring hatch the next year.

The best thing to do is ignore these bees; the activity only lasts a few weeks. But because they like dry soils and thin or bare spots in the lawn, you can water well during the few weeks they’re active in spring to try to encourage them to find other nesting sites.

How To Keep Bees Away From Your House

We've covered what to do when bees have moved in, but it's best to prevent bees from taking residence in your home in the first place. Here's what to know about keeping bees away from your house:

• Bees foraging on flowers in your yard aren’t an issue; just leave them alone.
  
• Watch for clusters of bees or lots of bee activity in or around your home or shed so you can tackle potential issues early on. Also, pay attention to any buzzing noises you may hear inside walls, says Griffin.
• Prevent bees from getting inside in the first place. Any gap greater than 1/8-inch could provide an entry for bees to establish a colony. Close up potential nesting sites, such as around water meters and other utilities, holes where pipes and wiring enter the house, cracks in window frames, and knot holes in wood siding with caulking. Carpenter bee holes may also be caulked to try and discourage further nesting.
• Use screen mesh less than 1/8-inch to cover holes that are necessary for airflow.
• Check for gaps where the chimney meets the house, and make sure chimney openings are covered properly.
• Keep household trash cans covered and far away from living spaces. Wash them regularly to remove sugary or syrupy residues from garbage such as soda or fruit juices, which attract foraging bees. Once a bee finds a good sugar source, they’ll recruit their friends to come to the site, too.
• If you have fruit trees, pick up fallen fruit so it won’t attract foraging bees. 
• Repair bare spots in the lawn to make your yard less hospitable for ground-nesting bees.
  
• Some sites make claims that essential oils from mint and other plants can repel bees, but many beekeepers use them to attract bees or treat diseases. Garlic-infused sprays can repel bees but are also toxic to insects.