Bee Happy This Summer: Why Bees Aren’t Pests

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Bees Aren't Pests flower pollen

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The sweetest smell is that of the dew on a spring morning. Add the scent of honeysuckle and flowers and you can literally smell the blue skies and blazing sunshine of summer that lays ahead. Lazy days spent by lakes and having picnics with the family are inevitably interrupted by someone jumping and screaming about the fuzzy bumblebee that’s just landed on their leg. You’d not have a summer without the bumblebee – literally.

With warm weather and sunshine, you get wasps, hornets and bumblebees. Some of these little critters are definitely considered as pests such as wasps, who make a point of putting a nest right above the front door. This then makes you feel like you can’t leave the house without running, screaming and whipping wasps into your slipstream as you go. Wasps prefer to build their nests in sheltered places like the eaves of a roof, the corners of the attic and the corners of the porch. Outside it’s usually burrows and hollowed out trees. Wasps never swarm, so if you see a swarm don’t panic as these are not wasps. Female wasps are aggressive and will sting repeatedly given the chance so if you suspect an invasion of wasps in your house, call pest control right away.

Like wasps, hornets can sting but they can also bite at the same time. They have the intelligence to mobilize a colony to sting as one in defence of their nest and to humans, this is life threatening. Extermination is important!

Bees Aren't Pests man harvesting bee hive

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Understanding why we need bees is an important issue. Without bees, we have no pollination. Without pollination, we have no flowers and trees. Without flowers and trees, we have no food. A third of the worlds food supply is down to bee pollination and if we spent time killing bees, we wouldn’t have very much to eat. Our survival is dependent on the lazy bug that buzzes by on a summers day so where possible, try not to kill them. There are species such as the honey bee, which is a valuable part of keeping our ecosystem going. Some people swat at the honey bee, not realising how precious these creatures are and how much they help instead of harm.

If you suspect that you have a swarm in your attic or around the front or back of the house, don’t grab the nearest bug spray! Contacting a local beekeeper to collect the swarm and relocate them somewhere safe is exactly what you should do. By understanding what bees look like and what they do for us, you could be saving a vital part of the species that keeps humans alive.

Honey bees do not aim to sting. They are a colony species aiming to pollinate and create more nectar. Bees in general won’t sting you unless you are aiming a smack in their direction. With a species that does something for us and the ecosystem, we should aim to protect them, not harm them.

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