Saint P, glad you mentioned this. Today I was out at my potting bench and the bees were bombing me and flying into my face. Dennis was working in the garage and said the same thing, they were just divebombing us no matter how much we slapped them away. Don't know what's 'bugging' them!

saintpfla, I dont know about you, but I know Cindee wears a red sweater quite often and maybe the bees are attracted to the colors of your clothes or the sweet smells gardeners usually sport.

Maybe you guys are driving em crazy?

Keep em eye on em though and be careful.

i've been fortunate, one of my gardens is a container garden of about 10-12 18" pots. there are numerous bees on on a few of the plants, mostly on the goldenrod. well, as they were all over it, i bumped into it, i thought for sure i would be stung a few times but they didn't bother me. whew!!!

Hey saintpfla please keep your bees to yourself. I have them in my angel trumpets when they bloom, but none are chasing me out of the garden. Why not catch a couple and bring them to the largo extention for id. If you have African bees they want to know about them

Hmmmm...interesting that you all have been having similar experiences.

This is the first time I have had this experience. These specific bees in my yard will actually chase me even if I am 4 feet away! Everything is blooming in my yard so there are plenty of food/pollen sources. It's just the oddest thing....I hope there's not a nest near-by. Eek!

I wonder if it could be the more africanized-honey bees?

Check this out...found this online on some bee site:

"The state of Florida is asking us to treat every single bee hive as africanized honey bees.

Aggressive bees have been a big problem this year.

"It's kind of weird because you hear in the news that honey bees are disappearing and not having many of them, but I cn tell you this, my company, we have done five times as many bee jobs this year as I have done in the last five years combined.

It seems like they're getting more and more aggressive. I don't know without dissecting it if it is a killer bee, but at the very least we have seen the most aggressive I have ever seen and the highest number of them have been this spring so far."

They look like regular honey bees to me and I have had lots in my garden all summer, although some people are seeing a diminished population. I think my luck is due in part to the many bee hives on a large piece of vacant property not far from us. They didn't sting, thank God, but they were annoying.

Tony, I am wearing a bright orange sweater today, thank you very much. Maybe I am just sweet!!

As many of you read Marcia's post about my honey bees, They were flying all around us as we stuck our fingers into the hive to eat honey and they were not aggressive at all.
honey bees sting when they feel that their hive is threaten.
When they are away from the hive they generally do not sting.
What you all have described seems like they are africanized.
You need to be cautious.

Felix

I agree, be very careful and I would not suggest capturing any of them for fear of accidentally harming a bee. When you do, they release a pheromone that triggers a response for the swarm to attack.

It was exactly a year ago that I had a really frightening encounter, I came across a swarm of bees in my yard. It looked like a small group of bees, but they were all over something right in the yard. I thought that maybe they were feeding on some sort of dead animal or something so I stopped the mower about 15 feet away. I got some spray that shot 20 feet and hit them with it and I swear, it was like in a cartoon, this enormous swarm, literally thousands of bees shot up and the noise was something else. I was able to run into my porch and close the door before they could get me.

I called a beekeeper who lives in Englewood and he came out with a full-on bee suit and this device that looks like a wet-dry vacuum. he carefully inspected what they were on and it turns out they had started building a hive right in the open, right in the middle of the grass (not in the ground but on top of it). He said in doing this for 30 years he's never seen this. He said that they were definitely the africanized bees and they were swarming, moving the hive. He removed the queen and the hive and carefully collected the workers with the vacuum. He knew the queen was there because he showed me the honeycomb with the eggs, he said the eggs would not be there if there wasn't a queen. He said that back in Englewood he was going to destroy the queen and relocate the workers with a domestic queen. In this way he says they try to dilute the genetics of the bees so that the strains are more docile over time. He said this was a "small" swarm, maybe just five thousand bees. (!)

He said I was very lucky I didn't go closer to it with the mower. He says they hate lawn mower noise and often attack people that come near with mowers. There are some horrifically scary videos on the Internet that show what happens when they attack. No human in FL has been killed yet (as of when my hive happened) but they have killed dogs and horses. You would have to run 1/4 mile to outrun them and the average number of stings on a person is about 500.

I'm still shuddering when I think about it. I was VERY lucky not to have been hurt. There are people who get these hives in the walls of their houses or garages and it's very expensive to remove them in these cases. It was just a couple hundred dollars in my case.

If you need bee removal, this is the guy who took mine out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bob van der Herchen Bee Removal and Rescue

I think the comment about "treating every hive as an Africanized hive" must be referring to your average homeowner taking those types of precautions in approaching an unknown hive. I don't think that means you can't have hives, or Felix and beekeepers throughout the state would be in trouble.

I agree, if you don't know bees and a hive appears in your yard, it's best to be very cautious, perhaps. But with our honeybees in such desperate trouble (they did another 60 Minute special on them last night), we need to be very careful not to harm HEALTHY honeybees. We are facing an extreme food crisis if we continue to lose them for agricultural pollination. And this isn't something that will take a long time to be felt. It's positively frightening!

I'm not suggesting you ignore bees that seem unduly aggressive, by any means. But we need to be very careful to protect our "normal" honeybees in the process. It IS quite possible that bees are attracted to bright colors and sweet fragrances, so perhaps that is something easily changed to avoid triggering aggression. OR investigation.

It seems like that while the bees continued to check you guys out, none were in stinging mode, so perhaps it was curiosity more than aggression? Just trying to think it through, here. NOT trying to make light of anything that could be frightening or dangerous. Sometimes bees and bumblebees have actually landed on me while inspecting me, and then buzzed on off after while. And I DO know that swatting at them or waving your arms around to chase them away can make the problem worse.

When bees suddenly take an interest in me, I try to stand very still until they are done looking me over. If they don't fly away in a short time, I will slowly move to the house and go in. But it seldom happens, and it has never been in high numbers, by any means. It's just one thing that has worked for me on occasion.

I say, when in doubt, go inside to be safe. But I'm also still urging that hives don't get destroyed TOO quickly, as we need our healthy honeybees so much. I am still planning to get a hive in the spring, I think, unless something happens in the meantime to change my mind. I'd like to try to do something to help the honeybees before they all disappear.

Marcia

Whatever we do, please be careful, in more ways than one. I saw the item on 60minutes re dying bee colonies. The environment needs them.

Marcia, you are totally correct with everything that you have stated.
some more information on our European honey bees:
When the hive gets too fool, a group of workers with a new queen will leave their hive looking for a new home. This is called a swarm.While this bees are swarming, they are homeless
and will not attack anyone. Last year I stood in the middle
of a swarm while they flew. I was not protected with my gear.
I was not stung. It was a most wonderful feeling. The buzzing sound was wonderful. once they gather in a big ball
with the queen in the center, I place them in a new hive.

Bees are attracted by dark colors, shiny jewelry. like dangling earings. They are also attracted by perfumes or strong odors like grease from fixing you car, etc.
When the barometric pressure gets low as when a storm is
approaching bees get aggressive. Certain nectars can be intoxicating to bees and they become drunk and aggressive.
My own thoughts also is that all the workers are female.
They could have hot flashes and the rest of female symtoms.
So handle them how you would handle a woman. Just my thoughts.
Felix

Felix !!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for the additional info from a beekeeper's perspective, Felix. Seeing your bees was one of the high points of our visit with you and Sylvia. Standing right beside the hives and looking inside them while you explained how it all worked was fascinating. And there was a real beauty to it all, as well.

I was amazed to have bees flying all around and to be tasting their honey, and yet not be threatened at all. It was an experience I won't soon forget!

When I'm ready for my hive, maybe you can go with me to get everything I need. Oh, and the hormone excuse works for me. I can identify! ;o)

Marcia

Maybe you should sing to them! I play music in my garden and no one has chased me out yet. Maybe they need some music to pollen by

Absolutely, Islandpete.
I'm always humming or singing so you may have something there.
By the way I gotta tell ya, I think your screen name is really
cool.

Marcia, I want to help you become "Sanford Queen bee".

Beth and the rest of the ladies, I'm just kidding ya'know.
Felix

Felix.......you knows we luvs ya! teeeheeeee (we gotta kid ya back, yanno!) :P

Felix - your point on: "Certain nectars can be intoxicating to bees and they become drunk and aggressive."

I'm wondering if that is what is happening? They seem to really go nutts for the salvia mixture in the pot - Angelonia is the other plant - it looks like mini-purple snapdragon type flowers. I have it mixed with blue salvia.

IslandPete: I'm sending the angry bees over to your house and out of my yard! ;)

Bob VanderHerchen is the man to call!
I work at The Sandbar on the Island.
We had Bob come out to relocate a hive of bees that had nested in a huge old scrub pine nearby.

"The bee man returns to the tree"

By Tom Vaught
sun staff writer

ANNA MARIA The man hired by Sandbar restaurant owner Ed Chiles to humanely get rid of a bee hive located on a lot adjacent to his restaurantÂs lot returned last Wednesday to set the stage for the bee evacuation.

Bob van der Herchen, of Englewood, used a garage vacuum with an extra long hose, some aluminum screening and a large wooden box with a one-way entrance and a honeycomb with the scent of a queen bee inside to get the bees to leave the tree. It will be a few weeks before he knows if it will work, but heÂs confident.
Nonetheless, he advised restaurant manager Joe Rogers to keep an eye on the tree for signs that it is not working.

Van der Herchen brought his pickup truck and a bee suit with a screened helmet Wednesday. There was a ladder on the truck, which he used to get close enough to the hive to use the vacuum. He sucked up the bees on the outside of the hollowed trunk of the Australian pine first, in order to get an idea of how big the hole to the hive is. When he finished that job, he took out some screen and formed a cone with excess screening around the large opening.

While worked on the cone, more bees came out of the hive to replace the ones that were now sitting inside a wooden box at the other end of the vacuum. Van der Herchen had to return with the vacuum and clear out the new bees before he could staple the cone over the entrance to the hive.

That raised the hackles of the bees in the nest, and he warned The Sun reporter to leave because when he came down from the ladder, the bees would follow.

With the cone in place over the beehive entrance, bees will be able to get out the narrow opening at the end, but wonÂt be able to find their way back in. They will fly around looking for someplace else to nest, which will hopefully be the other wooden box that he mounted in the tree.

"This box will weight a couple hundred pounds by the time I take it away with the bees in it," he said. "A lot of that will be the honey they will make inside it."

Van der Herchen said it would take a few weeks for all the bees to leave the hive. As their supply of honey diminishes, they will kill the larvae waiting in the hive, but before that happens, another generation of bees will be born and will have to leave.

Chiles contacted van Herchen after he learned that the hives was in the trees. He first asked the city to take care of it, but when he learned the city was going to bring in an exterminator, he asked them to cancel those plans.

Chiles said he had been reading about a shortage of bees nationwide and that scientists were trying to pinpoint why. He decided he would try to find someone to move them, not destroy them.

Van der Herchen said if all goes well, he would be able to move the bees in the box somewhere safer, Somewhere not on the Island.

That may mean the bees will be going to his property, where he raises other bees and sells honey.

Hooray! Sounds wonderful, and I hope it works/worked!

Marcia