Bees hate the Christmas lights...

**Monkadelic** · 08-19-2011, 11:50 PM

Hey all, I was hoping for your thoughts on this. Last few nights, bees from one particular hive have been going bonkers over the christmas lights we have on the eaves of the house (we call it yard lighting). They were just banging on the kitchen window, while I was cleaning up for the night.

If I turn on the overheads on the porch, they go bananas over those too. Problem is, they are fan lights, so there are ticked off bees getting thrown around.

Us social humans spend a lot of time on our porch, and hubby gets a little weirded out when the bees aren't acting "normal". Anyone have any suggestions? It is only the one hive, which I find bizarre.

Thanks!
Monk

**TriJim** · 08-20-2011, 04:57 AM

You might be a redneck ... if you have your Christmas lights on in August! Just kidding - I know 'yard lighting.'

Bees will fly to porch lights, particularly when it's warm in the evening. Perhaps they think there are now hundreds of small suns. You could try red lights or perhaps new LED bulbs that may have less UV light and may be less interesting to your bees. Good luck.

**Fuzzy** · 08-20-2011, 09:45 AM

Change the "fan" lights to low wattage incandescant bulbs instead of the energy saving CFL's.
The CFL's put out a lot of UV. Regular old bulbs put out a lot of IR.

**alpha6** · 08-20-2011, 12:47 PM

Nope he wasn't kidding...pretty sure if you have your Christmas lights up and on in August you ARE a Redneck...not that there is anything wrong with that.

**cg3** · 08-20-2011, 01:00 PM

When I made fun of my friend for still having his lights up in Aug, he said "The most important strategy for an impressive holiday display is to start early." I think he started in 1998.

**Bee Bliss** · 08-20-2011, 01:40 PM

It is not uncommon for an occasional restaurant, business or residence in the Wisconsin northwoods to have the big (not mini lights) colored Christmas lights on in the summertime. (Not a redneck thing..........a northwoods thing!! ) And, there is Christmas in July, too. Lot of people camping have mood lights. Some people have wood cutouts of evergreen trees and put different color reflectors on it so car lights seem to light up on the tree. Love the northwoods.

Does your hive entrance face the lights? Ours does not yet we had one bee that was buzzing the porch light at night.

**Monkadelic** · 08-20-2011, 06:02 PM

I am proud to embrace my redneck heritage, yes.

Hubby just corrected me, they aren't christmas lights if they're white. They are house lights. (He's a Chicago boy.) Uh, okay.... I guess we have house lights then

The lights don't face the hive entrance, but are on that same side of the yard. The back motion sensor light does, but that doesn't go on too often. It's weird, the lights didn't seem to bother them til last night.

The fan lights are the crappy old incandescents! Unfortunately I can't put them on a dimmer.

We did just put the colored led lights back up, so our mood lighting is back as of an hour ago. Hopefully they won't mind those.

**BeeGhost** · 08-20-2011, 10:55 PM

I wasnt aware that once Christmas lights went up..............they had to come down!!!

**Monkadelic** · 09-08-2011, 09:56 AM

So I had mentioned this phenomenon to some of the beeks in the bee club, and they were a bit perplexed and seriously doubtful.

Last night, I hosted a committee meeting at our house, and one of the beeks was patiently waiting for dark to fall and the bees to come out (he really didn't believe me, I guess) so he could see this for himself. We didn't see any bees on the Christmas lights, he was a bit disappointed. I was about to offer to turn on the overhead fan light that they hate, when BAM, I got nailed right on the neck. His wife, who was sitting next to me and is an entomologist, grabbed the bee, scraped the stinger and said, "Well, here's proof that Monk is not crazy, and they certainly are honeybees!"

I have no idea what the provocation was to sting me, I might have flipped my ponytail to that side but I sure as heck had no idea that I had a bee hanging out on my neck. It was that unexpected, going from a conversation about cloud storage to "Oh, I just got stung...what the heck!"

I'm going to research lattice to put up to provide some night shade, but maybe someone has some thoughts that didn't surface when I first started this thread.