I had a traveling swarm set up camp by my garage on a wooden frame that I was storing. Only took about 1/2 hour for what I’m guessing was hundreds upon hundreds of bees (a mass about 1/2 way between a large grapefruit and a volleyball) to gather. They set up camp late in the day, and left en masse the next morning.
Also, this was right next to a path that I had to go to to get to my car. I’m not allergic, or particularly worried about insects, and had to go to my car. I didn’t bother the bees, and my walking back and forth through their flight path a few feet from the mass of bees didn’t seem to provoke them.
I looked out my office window in downtown Vancouver a 3 years ago and saw a massive swarm of bees passing between my building and the next. It only took about 10 minutes from the start of the swarm and the end. Swarming Bees
Smoke to calm the bees then calm, deliberate movements when interacting with them. Standard bee-keeper stuff. A lot of people are afraid of bees, but I think that’s mostly because most people haven’t really dealt much with bees. The things flying around your food at the picnic aren’t bees; they are usually yellowjackets (a form of wasp) and are a lot more random and aggressive.
Better than the one that set up camp on my friend’s car door handle, then went away.
It took them a few days to realize that the swarm had set up camp in the walls of their house (through a small crack near the roof line). They had to call a bee removal service to get rid of the bees that were happily constructing a new hive in the walls…
I read about this in The Guardian this morning and the driver said it was a 10min quick stop (obviously your mileage may vary on this anecdotal evidence).
The other piece of interesting information was that this was a hive relocating so the bees wouldn’t have been aggressive as they were not protecting an established territory.
The fact that the shopper actually drove off without any rear view in the mirror - BECAUSE BEES!! leaves other questions unanswered!
We used to have a hive of bees over the front door of the enclosed porch at the cottage. We’d have to step over the small puddle of honey when opening the door, but we never had any problem with stings. I guess the bees didn’t see our comings and goings as a threat, and we closed the door quietly rather than slamming it. The head of my bed was adjacent to that wall, and I remember going to sleep to the hum of of the bees as a child. We never got any inside.
