A Look At Some Of The Many Types Of Bees In The UK

There are some 200 species of bees in the UK, and about a quarter of them are endangered species, which is not good news, because they are pollinators. Many of our plants and trees could not exist without the help of bees, so they are vital for our food sources. There are 25 different types of bumblebees alone.

Some of the more common species of bees that you may see include the common bumblebee, honey bee, mason bee, white-tailed bumblebee, leaf cutter bee, common carder bee, tawny mining bee, red-tailed bumblebee, and tree bumblebee.

The biggest bees are bumblebees and they are not only larger than other bees, but furrier, and have a variety of coloured stripes across their tails. They tend to nest under the decking, in abandoned mole or rat burrows, in bird boxes, and so on. They are not large colonies, usually only from a couple of hundred up to perhaps 500. The queen starts a new nest each spring, and she is a very large bee and can be seen from February onwards, perhaps flying low over the ground searching for a nesting site or feeding on any flowers in bloom such as willow catkins, bluebells, daffodils, and so on.

The queen stocks her nest with nectar and pollen and lays the first batch of eggs which she incubates in the same way as a bird does by sitting on them and shivering her flight muscles to produce warmth. By mid-summer there will be quite a number of workers, and the queen will start laying both male and female eggs. The females get fed extra food and they will become future queens. In the autumn, the males, workers, and old queen will die off.

Masonry bees are solitary bees and, as the name suggests, will find a hole in a wall or other cavity in which to nest. They can also actually tunnel through soft mortar in order to build a nest.

Everybody loves honeybees, partly because they produce honey. They are relatively small bees and can set up home in walls and chimneys on occasion. The most alarming thing for some people is when they swarm, because that is a lot of bees. They may settle on a tree or fence post but will usually disappear within a day or so when they go looking for a permanent home.

Tree bees are another type of bee and a relatively new arrival here. They have a tawny or reddish thorax, a black abdomen, and a white tail. They lie to nest in bird boxes and in parts of buildings and may worry you because of the high level of activity around the nest, including the appearance of "surveillance drones" keeping a watchful eye over it.

The simple fact is that if you leave bees alone, by and large they will leave you alone. They won’t cause any damage to your home, and they won’t sting you unless they are provoked. After the summer, the colony will go away and won’t usually return to the same site next spring. In fact, by the time you begin to notice their activity the colony will be about to go into decline anyway, so the best thing to do is to leave them well alone and enjoy the fact that they are pollinating your garden. They are actually doing you a favour.

If the nest is outside or underground, there shouldn’t be any need to remove it, but if you do need bee removal in Lincolnshire, then contacting a pest control company to remove it may be an option. If it is a problem, then a pest control company may be prepared to provide bee removal in Lincolnshire, but very few would be prepared to exterminate the nest, because our bees are beneficial to every last one of us. Some pest control companies have the skills necessary to remove a nest from a wall cavity or chimney and take it to a new location.

While it is possible to eradicate a colony entirely, it is necessary to take certain steps to ensure that other bees do not enter a treated area and become contaminated as a result. The last thing that any of us want is to lose any bees if we don’t have to.

Pestcotek is a specialist pest control company and can provide bee removal in Lincolnshire if absolutely necessary.

Pestcotek is the leading pest control company in the county and can use mouse traps in Lincolnshire to control a mouse infestation.