Last year I noticed that there was a colony of bees living in the base of a red wood tree near my garden gate. As wasn’t too bothered about them at the time as the place was more or less a building site.

One of the bees

Then, a couple of weeks ago my father was stung by one of them as he passed and yesterday as I was pottering around, there was a great hum and swarming of the bees that started around 2:45pm and lasted for 20 minutes or so after which they seemed to have spread-out and became very active around the locality of the hive. I’d guess it was a fair size colony as they made an impressive noise.

Home, sweet (bee) home!

I haven’t got a problem with them (my father can take a sting or two!) but there are now a number of small children living in the area that could stumble across the hive and who knows what could happen.

So I’d like to ask if anyone knows what should I do to remove any risk? I could fence around the tree which will stop anyone getting at the hive itself, but then there’s still this afternoon swarming to contend with and a fence is not really going to protect anyone from a determined set of bees.

The bees (those small dots) ’swarming’

I don’t really want to kill them off, but are there any other options….?

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