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Lots of bees at front door of our house....why?

16K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Rick 1456 
#1 ·
Hi all: This is the strangest thing. We have a ton of bees at the front door of our house. My hive is in the backyard of our house close to a small pond. We have a mat at the front door that is saturated with water from the recent rains we have had here. Could the door mat be causing the bees to congregate to get water (I mean I have a pond for them in back)? The front door gets full sun and perhaps it is heating up the water? My guess is the water in the pond in backyard is too cold for them? This is a problem too because we have our home for sale and when prospective buyers come and there are tons of bees at the front door it looks bad especially with a bee hive in the backyard (of course we are moving the hive when we sell). Most people don't understand the honey bee. This is something that has just recently started in the past three days. I just moved the door mat to see if that will help. Should I smoke the area by the door? My husband is getting upset because he thinks it will scare the potential buyers off. Let me know your thoughts. Thank you in advance for your help.
 
#2 ·
Try putting another water source by the hive and put a little sugar water in it. Just enough to entice the bees to the new location. If they are liking the door mat to get their water put something similar close to the hive with the small amount of sugar added to it. It should not take long to get their water pattern changed to the new location.

Robert
 
#4 ·
It may seem obvious, but make sure there is no sugar source around the door. It took me 2 days to find the spraybottle of sugar water I had left under something on my front porch. Also keep in mind that they could possibly be attracted to any strong sweet odors coming from the house. I had a fan in a window one day while boiling down wax... I soon had bees in the house!

You are probably closer with the water theory, though.
 
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