Honey bees nested in our chimney for over a year

Description

Dr Lorraine Scott from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen's University Belfast said honey bees are 99.9% domesticated, mainly living in human-managed hives and treated for diseases.

"My opinion is that we're seeing more swarming honey bees, thus nesting in houses, due to an uptake in beekeeping," she said.

"The like of the swarm that was in a chimney for over a year, that would be of huge interest to us in terms of research, because that means that colony has survived without any intervention; it can withstand a really high pathogen load."

If a bumblebee nests in a house, she said, that is due to a "lack of nesting resources in the natural environment" as they usually favour underground nests in grassland or even an old mousehole.

"Research has shown that our native pollinators, the bumblebees, are actually doing slightly better in terms of genetic health and other sort of health indicators. They're doing slightly better in urban and suburban areas than they are in rural areas.

"And the reason for that? It could down to be down to rural pressures and pesticides and food growth and loss of hedgerows.

"Whereas in urban centres you tend to have gardens and a diversity of floral resources. Any little crevice they can find, a queen would set up a colony there."

She advises a bumblebee colony should be left alone, unless it is causing distress - in which case you should contact a conservation charity.