Bees in my compost pile

Food related, I guess. I have a plastic stackable composter with air slits on the side. I've got 1 or 2 large white bees in it and I noticed 2 or 3 regular small bees in it. They do not appear aggressive but I think their presence might be problematic if they establish a hive and I start turning the compost. I sprayed it (and them) down good with a garlic/insecticide soap mixture this am. Any other steps to take?

I guess I'm assuming here that you are closing it and have a tight fitting top and layers.

How big are the air slits on the sides? Is it practical to cover them with a fine mesh like screening? Maybe use something like E6000 adhesive around the edges of the screen to glue it into place?

Was there some composting material in particular they seemed interested in?

I'd just about bet money they're yellow jackets instead of honeybees. Honeybees get a bad rap by being confused with yellow jackets.

http://www.bruinbooks.com/yellowjacket.gif

nice sized slits, they can pretty much come in and out of them. I was considering getting a large plastic bag and covering the whole thing air tight for a week or 2 to discourage them. I put a lot of apple and pear cores as well as banana peels in it. If they are yellow jackets, they are probable best gone.

Ed,

They are yellow jackets. Happens to me often. I don't like to zap them with spray near the composting stuff just because I am anti chemicals in my food and in my garden, so I live with the yellows. They have yet to build a home in the plastic composter--that they usually do somewhere nearby, which is when they get the spray.

Thomas, as a kid growing up on a Missouri farm we always had wasps and yellow jackets each summer. Usually thee didn't bother too much and it was a live and let live situation. However if the wasp built it's nest too close to either the house or the barn (animals) it had to go. What we did was to take an old piece of cloth and wrap it around a broom handle or some such. Then it was a bit of flammable liquid and lit it under the nest. The nest being mostly paper mache (sp) it burned well. and flying wasps, yellow jacket or whatever has wings that are also susceptible to fire, so they fell right out of the air. now the common "mud Dauber wasp was a different thing as the mud he builds from is not flammable. for him, we used a much larger cloth ergo a larger flame. So, now I guess someone will report me to PETA. Are insects animals?

Thomas, as a kid growing up on a Missouri farm we always had wasps and yellow jackets each summer. Usually thee didn't bother too much and it was a live and let live situation. However if the wasp built it's nest too close to either the house or the barn (animals) it had to go. What we did was to take an old piece of cloth and wrap it around a broom handle or some such. Then it was a bit of flammable liquid and lit it under the nest. The nest being mostly paper mache (sp) it burned well. and flying wasps, yellow jacket or whatever has wings that are also susceptible to fire, so they fell right out of the air. now the common "mud Dauber wasp was a different thing as the mud he builds from is not flammable. for him, we used a much larger cloth ergo a larger flame. So, now I guess someone will report me to PETA. Are insects animals?

PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals!!

Thomas, as a kid growing up on a Missouri farm we always had wasps and yellow jackets each summer. Usually thee didn't bother too much and it was a live and let live situation. However if the wasp built it's nest too close to either the house or the barn (animals) it had to go. What we did was to take an old piece of cloth and wrap it around a broom handle or some such. Then it was a bit of flammable liquid and lit it under the nest. The nest being mostly paper mache (sp) it burned well. and flying wasps, yellow jacket or whatever has wings that are also susceptible to fire, so they fell right out of the air. now the common "mud Dauber wasp was a different thing as the mud he builds from is not flammable. for him, we used a much larger cloth ergo a larger flame. So, now I guess someone will report me to PETA. Are insects animals?

I'm sure, Bob, that with my talent, I'd burn the damned place down if I tried that method...

We get wasp nests in odd places on the house and barn, and I find myself climbing all over each summer.

I love it when the propane gas guy comes to refill and lets out a loud scream as th wasps who nested under the tank's cap come out in numbers.

I've been stung by wasps many times only to have momentary itch and swelling, so I suppose I am not allergic or they are not potent.

Are insects animals?

They're not plants.

Wasp insecticide comes in cans that spray 20 feet so you can stand far away from the hive.

So PETA might apply? I might even get Michael Vick as a cell mate?

I've been stung by wasps many times only to have momentary itch and swelling, so I suppose I am not allergic or they are not potent.

You're not allergic. Insect stings can be very dangerous to the allergic or the very young. My earliest memory is of being stung by two yellow jackets at age 2 and almost dying from it. But I got four stings three years later and had no severe reaction, just the usual pain and local swelling.

-Paul W.

now the common "mud Dauber wasp was a different thing as the mud he builds from is not flammable. for him, we used a much larger cloth ergo a larger flame. So, now I guess someone will report me to PETA. Are insects animals?

Yes, insects are animals. Paul McCartney is organizing a protest march to your house at this very moment.

Mud daubers are solitary wasps. Each individual female wasp builds a small nest consisting of a few mud chambers, each of which she fills with one egg and several paralyzed insects to serve as food for the larva when the egg hatches. She then seals the chamber and, once it's completed, abandons the nest.

The really pesky wasps are the colonial ones that build paper nests, especially yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets. Bald-faced hornets build the enclosed paper nests, usually hung from a tree branch, that you see in cartoons. These nests can get very large. Yellow jackets prefer to build their nests underground, especially in abandoned animal burrows--or in compost heaps.

-Paul W.

Yellow jackets prefer to build their nests underground, especially in abandoned animal burrows--or in compost heaps.

-Paul W.

Maybe, but mine like to build their paper nests inside my attic as well as in the compost heap or any barrel they can find.

And the hornets use under the porch and decks, under the barn roof overhang or inside the barn at its peak, as well as the attic.

My attic seems quite appealing to wasps, that's also where I find most of those mud nests.

I've got to stop going into that attic...