greetings and Salutations...

Lots of questions and unknowns for me here, alas.

For example...having bees in the yard is not the same as "keeping a bee colony". Unless there is a stack of wooden boxes someplace on the person's property with bees flying in and out of them, the bees probably live someplace else.

Anywhere there are flowers, you are likely to find bees. They forage over a wide area, gathering nectar and pollen to take home. Actually, for what it is worth, you should probably be GLAD to see a bunch of bees in the area. Something like 75% of the crops in the USA are pollenated by bees, so without the girls, there would BE no crops. The good news is that when the flowers go away, so will the bees.

Also, since you are on GardenWeb, I would think that you would be interested in having a good, healthy garden, with, perhaps, a bunch of flowers, or, misc vegetables. without bees around, your flowers and veggies will be far less numerous, if the plants produce at all.

If anyone gets stung for "doing nothing", then, I would suspect that the flying insects were wasps and not honey bees. non-africanized honey bees are pretty calm and peaceful girls. I have found that I have to work pretty hard to get stung by them (and, yes, I AM a beekeeper - *smile*).

It sounds as if you may not have a great deal of experience or knowledge about bees. It is easy to get the picture of honey bees as being these evil bugs with stingers a foot long that are just waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting human and engage in carnage. Too many movies and TV shows and scare stories in the papers about "killer bees", alas. The truth could not be further from this image we are given by the sensationalists attempting to suck as much money out of our pockets as is possible by playing up the gore.

The fact of the matter is that honey bees will go about their business of finding food for the hive and pretty much ignore anything else. Even if interrupted, they will explore a bit, then, move on. It is not uncommon for me to let a bee crawl from a flower onto my hand and wander around a bit. Another fact is that when a bee stings anything, the stinger and poison sack are ripped out of its body. This kills the bee, and, for the good of the colony that cannot happen too often. So...bees tend to NOT attack, but, rather, will attempt to escape instead.

It certainly IS possible to get a honeybee to sting, though. Like most of us, if it feels that it is being threatened with death (say by being crushed), it will sting as an instinctive thing. If it perceives the colony and the queen bee is under threat, it will fly out and sting. The problem with africanized bees is that they are REALLY easy to annoy, and, they STAY annoyed for longer times. It is kind of the difference between suddenly changing lanes in front of a soccer dad or middle-income guy in a pickup truck, and, a bunch of Hell's Angels bikers. In the former case you are likely to get a shouted remark, a beep of the horn, and/or, a hand gesture. In the latter case, you might end up being chased down and your windows broken out!

In terms of danger, the bee sting is kind of overrated. About 85-90% of the time, the biggest problem is the sudden, sharp sting, and, a minor redness or swelling that goes away fairly quickly. For MOST of the remaining 10-15% of folks, the swelling can be pretty impressive, and, the irritation can last longer. For about 0.5% of children and about 3% of adults, the reaction can be bad enough to cause a person to go into anaphylactic shock...which can be very bad indeed. Attached is a good resource discussing venomous insects, and, how to deal with their existence.

As a matter of fact, bee venom and honey are finding widespread usage in the treatment of a number of ills. Granted, some of it is snake oil, but, I know that the stiffness in MY fingers is far less bothersome when I get the girls to nail my hands every once in a while.

So...having rambled on a bit, here are some suggestions as to what to do.

1. AFTER you have made it through the stress of closing on the house and moving in, make some contacts with local beekeepers, and, get some experience with bees. They are truly fascinating creatures and worth the time.

2. Don't TRAIN your kids to swat at bees. Teach them that if a bee/wasp is flying around you, it is not going to HURT you. Swatting at it will only anger it, and may provoke an attack. Kind of hard to do for us adults, as we tend to get that instinct in place TOO young. However, fear of insects is a LEARNED response that is taught, usually by the parents.

3. check with your family doctor about having some allergy tests run to see if any of your family is allergic to venom. If so, your health care professional will likely point you to an Epi-pen or some other emergency treatement. Make sure that you have several stashes around the house, and, everyone that can deal with it knows where they are located and how to administer the treatment.

4. learn the difference between a HONEY BEE and a WASP. The latter should be treated with more caution, as they tend to be more short-tempered and aggressive....My usual rule of thumb is that if it is fuzzy, it is likely a honey bee. If it is shiny, it is likely to be aggressive.

5. If you walk up to the car and see a honeybee standing or walking on the window/door...just ignore it, go on, get in the car and go about your business. If you aren't a flower, a bee doen't really care about you at all.

6. remember...a bee sting is a momentary inconvenience and discomfort for you. It is a death sentence for the bee.

Thanks for your attention...
Dave Mundt

Here is a link that might be useful: About venom allergies

thank you very much. i went by the house and they did finally leave. I appreciate the help very much. I do want to add that I have been trying and do try everytime a bee or a bug is around for the kids to not swat. i do not because i was taught very well. I do not like the killing of bees to get rid of them. not into hurting any kind of animal or insect. especially when i do know they can help more than harm. I will have to say I handled my last encounter very well. My 2 year old son is a huge chicken when it comes to any bug, and that bee was just hanging around me and because he is a toddler to add i wanted him to move away and told him so very camly so that he wouldnt notice and freak out which i knew wouldnt be good. but anyways thank you very much again.

I saw this while looking for similar information. I keep bees in my backyard. But there is a privacy fence between me and my neighbors. She rarely sees any bees except when the clover is blooming in the spring, and I have four hives. Actually the point of this is that when bees forage they are mostly interested in the nectar.

If those are honey bees in your yard they could have come from as far as 4 miles away from thier hive. Bee forage that far away, sometimes more.

The second point is that bees normally don't attack people when foraging unless squashed or harassed. Which leads me to think that these might be some form of wild bee, yellow jacket, or wasp.

Wasps and their relatives are carnivores that might also eat nectar or sweet things. They hunt for insects to feed their babies.

Honey bees are vegetarians that eat flower nectar and pollen. My Uncle owned a honey bee farm and they were all over the place at his house. We got stung, but only after running around barefoot and stepping right on them, or trying to catch them in jars. And there were hundreds of them all around.

That being said, all stinging insects like that are defensive around thieir homes and babies and food stores. It's just that Wasps, yellow jackets, and that type of stinger is a whole LOT more aggressive and sometimes for what might be viewed as no reason.

If I take the lid off my beehives, and get inside to get the honey I am in essence threatening their family, food, and queen. So I expect to get attacked. But away from the hive I would not expect an actual bee to attack me if I were not threatening it with my fingers or toes.

Try checking pictures of both so you can see the difference. And come on over to my blog to see all about Honey Bees here: http://jewelant.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/honey-bee-facts/ and HERE: http://jewelant.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/honey-bee-and-honey-facts-2/

Here is a link that might be useful: Jewelant Blog - Honey bee facts

I forgot to add. I myself have been stung after harassing my own bees. And there is an article on my blog about that. Don't be alarmed, this is not apt to happen to anyone that isn't trying to collect a bee swarm the way I did. I actually provoked them enought to get stung. My bad.

On another note, 2 year olds are very exploratory and grab things out of curiosity. I teach visitors the safe distance and place to observe my hives, which is usually just out of their flight path back to the entrance of the hives. But it's actually close enough to see what the bees do. If you watch closely, you can see which way they fly when they go back to and leave a hive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jewelant Blog - Things We Live On and Around

hi, i would also like to add that a injured bee will release pheromones that will make other bees go into a defensive mode. So swatting is not a good thing, As you may injure a bee.
To show that bees are not aggressive unless provoked,As stated by jjarcher. Above is a closeup photo I took a couple days ago, And never got stung!