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| Record Summary | swarm, moving into our house via the air bricks by the back door |
| Found as | Imago |
| Date | 24 May 2012 |
| Capture method | swept |
| OS grid ref | OSGR: SU56 |
| Lat/Lon | 51° 20’ N, 1° 10’ W |
| Vice County | Berks, VC no: 22 |
| Country | England |
Notes:
About 2pm I noticed bee activity by our back door: 20-30 bees in the air and the buzzing audible within the house. Rather more bees were settled on the wall and crawling into two air bricks. There were a few lost bees in the adjacent garage, passage and bedroom above.
About an hour later the air filled with bees and the buzzing became intense. Bees were hitting the window like heavy rain! I didn’t fancy going outside, but had good views from various windows and glass doors. Hundreds of bees were alighting on the wall and climbing up to the air bricks, where they rapidly disappeared (reminscent of the battle on the bridge in Clint Eastwood’s "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly").
After another hour or so the bees had mostly gone inside and the activity subsided, though a good number were settled on the wall. At this point I ventured outside to take more photographs.
Apparently swarms inside the fabric of buildings cannot be extracted and have to be destroyed.
The pest control operative was surprisinlgy conservation-minded and said that if we gave them a couple of days, they might well move on. It would be a pity to kill the swarm unnecessarily.
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