Kurt Braunohler makes fun of a woman who has only just noticed she has fifty thousand bees living in her walls. In his words, “What are you talking about, you’ve just noticed them? That’s a Nissan Juke full of bees!” When I first watched the stand up comedian I laughed along, I judged the lady and agreed, you would notice when the first thousand arrived, not at the fifty thousand mark. However it doesn’t work like that.
I’ve been a gardener since toddlerhood. I adore plants, bugs, conservation, compost, flowers, produce, ponds and wildflowers. If you look at my channel, BigFatFarmUK and BigFatFarm on TikTok you’ll see I’m constantly creating spaces that are bug friendly and paradise for bees. I love cutting back the roses as a bumblebee keeps me company buzzing from flower to flower and until this year I had never been stung by a bee.
Then…
@bigfatfarmuk #savethebees #whatishappening ♬ original sound – Nathan
Yup I stepped out into a bee tornado followed by:
@bigfatfarmukBeehive in my walls – oh dear♬ original sound – 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐦™
At first I was quite excited. I’d made the garden so bee friendly they wanted to live with us. We already can’t use the loft or attic space because we have protected bats living in them, (which we love, many evenings are spent watching them hunting down their supper), we have hedgehogs in the garden with their very own house. We have crested newts in the pond, which are protected too, common lizards in the grass, slowworms, moles, rabbits, weasels, otters, the list is endless and we love it. It’s like our very own Disney movie except they are useless with a needle and thread.
I embraced it, gardened around them until I tried to cut the grass. As soon as I started the mower a gang of bees descended on me and wouldn’t let me go. It was shocking, painful and pretty scary. I vowed to leave the grass alone.
Then, while having tea in the garden, my son was stung, just for sitting peacefully. The postman was stung for lingering too long on the doorstep talking to me. They do give a little warning, they’ll bump into you a few times first and then go for the kill.
Our landlady sent over an expert, a friend of ours who keeps bees. As he’s telling me that they shouldn’t attack unless they feel threatened, he’s stung. A few times. He soon leaves. The next time he comes he’s in full bee suit, as am I. (You can buy them quite cheaply on Amazon). He inspects and says there’s little he can do except build a hive, attach it to the wall and hope they move into it. In the meantime, only garden after dark.
The bees moved into the hive, but also kept their original home, seeing the box as an extension rather than a new build. They did calm down a little, enough to get into the garden in daylight but this may have been due to the cooling weather, rather than the hive.
When I finally made it into a sunlit garden, the grass was long, and the willow tree in the centre of the small lawn was buzzing. On closer inspection a huge wasp’s nest had formed, and the wasps covered a third of the entire garden. These guys don’t need to feel threatened to sting you, you just need to be in their way.
The bees live in the wall of my bedroom and while the white noise of constant buzzing at night is therapeutic it also leads to many nightmares of being a bee tornado and being stung by a thousand bees. I’ve not counted them all but I do think there are tens of thousands in there. Probably making honey that’s dripping down the cavity walls and attracting all sorts of other pests. The wall, on my side, feels warm to the touch and has a clear vibration to it. It’s quite the conversation starter.
So now, I’ve given up. The bees and wasps own the front garden, along with some ducks, chickens, hedgehogs, dragonflies and toads. I’ve used Philips Hue string lights (do you like my little plug, I wasn’t paid for it and it’s not an affiliate link) to make the back yard pretty and am planting more in the paddock, turning the borders into bee friendly areas again. I’ve not learned my lesson.
While I agree the bees need saving, and all gardens need to cater to the bees, I do think a little more education is needed. If the pointing had been kept up on the walls of our listed building the bees wouldn’t have found a place to call home, instead preferring a tree or barn a little way from civilisation. This way they could visit for meals and live elsewhere. Once you have bees in your walls it’s almost impossible to move them. They’re not classed as pests (rightly so) and can create huge hives that cause a lot of damage.
As you create your bee friendly garden take a look at your home, are there any holes, cavity walls, nooks and crannies where bees could create a hive? If so, consider blocking these off before you sow those wildflower seeds or you may just end up in a bee tornado.
