Having birdhouses on your property can be very satisfying. It’s a great way to attract birds to your yard so you can watch them.
Sadly, there might be times when birds won’t use the birdhouses that you install. One reason birds might stay away involves bees and wasps.
What should you do if the birdhouses on your property appear to be overrun with bees or wasps? It’s important to handle this situation right away.
Read on to learn how to get rid of bees and wasps in a birdhouse. This will ensure that the birdhouses are usable and that the birds won’t have to worry about the presence of either bees or wasps.
Will Bees Make a Hive in a Birdhouse?
Yes, bees will invade birdhouses and live inside of them. This can be rather annoying when you want to attract birds to the birdhouses.
As you’d expect, the birds aren’t going to be able to use the birdhouses until the bees or wasps are kicked out. Bees seem to love many different types of birdhouses because they give them a convenient spot where they can live.
The shape of a birdhouse is perfect for many different types of bees. It gives them a protected and secluded location where they can make a hive.
This isn’t an uncommon situation by any means. It’s typical for bees and wasps to live in birdhouses.
So what can be done when this occurs? You can get the bees or wasps removed from the birdhouses.
You could also choose to just allow the bees to stay. Bees are beneficial to the environment and serve a vital role in pollinating local flowers.
If you want the bees gone or if you’re afraid the bees will be a problem for you or your family, there are options to consider. You need to be careful, though.
Calling Professionals is Recommended
Calling professionals is recommended when you’re trying to get rid of either bees or wasps. It’s easy to get stung multiple times if you don’t take the right precautions.
There are various ways to eliminate bees that you could try on your own. You’ll learn more about this later.
Just understand that you don’t have to do this yourself if you don’t want to. The easiest thing to do is to call professionals in the area that can help.
Pest control services have the right sprays to easily get rid of bees or wasps that are nesting in undesirable locations. They can come out to your home and eliminate the bees or wasps quickly.
This allows you to get the job handled as fast as possible. However, you will have to pay more money when getting rid of bees this way.
Relocate the Bees
Perhaps you don’t want to kill the bees. You might understand the importance of bees.
If you’d feel bad about eliminating the bees, it might be best to relocate them instead. There might be groups in your area that will help you to relocate the bees.
There are some areas that have what are known as “bee clinics.” Essentially, this is a place that will look after bees that need to be relocated after making hives in bad spots.
This may or may not be an option where you live. Regardless, it might be worth looking into.
You’ll simply have to research whether there are any businesses or groups in your area that will help with this. If you have local beekeepers, that could be an option as well.
Use a Soap Spray
Using a soap spray is a solid way to get rid of bees and wasps. This method is simple and it can kill the invaders fast.
Simply mix liquid soap and water together to make a spray. You can also use detergent for this if you have laundry detergent that you can spare.
Once the soap and water are mixed, you want to shake it up. If you want to make the spray more potent, try adding a bit of lemon or peppermint to the mix.
When you’re finished, put the mixture into a spray bottle. Now you can spray the bees or wasps to kill them easily.
Keep in mind that this is going to be a tough way to eliminate an entire nest. You’ll likely get stung if you aren’t wearing protective gear.
Wasps can be very aggressive and they will try to sting you to protect their nest. Keep this in mind and call professionals if you’re not comfortable taking the risk.
Protective Gear
So how would you go about protecting yourself from bee stings? You’d need to wear protective gear.
The best gear to protect yourself from bee stings is the type of gear that’s worn by beekeepers. They wear suits that keep bees from being able to sting them.
It allows beekeepers to do what they need to do to maintain bee hives. You could use the same type of gear to eliminate bees if you’re so inclined.
Wearing the suit will make it so the bees can’t do anything to you. When you’re wearing the beekeeper gear, you can spray the bees or wasps with the soap spray mentioned above.
This is the best way to go about killing bees and wasps. It keeps you safe from retaliation and allows you to take care of the problem.
You can get the protective gear that you need online. Just be sure that the gear fits and make sure there aren’t any gaps in the gear where bees can slip in.
Remember to be careful so you don’t get injured. You must be especially vigilant if you’re allergic to bees or wasps.
Clean the Birdhouse
Cleaning the birdhouse thoroughly is important once the bees or wasps have been eliminated. You might want to take the birdhouse down and clean it that way.
Use boiling water to clean the birdhouse and then allow it to dry in the sun. Try to place the birdhouse somewhere sunny so it can dry properly.
This should ensure that birds will come back and potentially use the birdhouses. You can hang the birdhouses up again if you want to once they’re completely dry.
It might be wise to do some things to the birdhouses to try to keep wasps from becoming a problem again. Otherwise, you might have the same thing happen.
Try Using Soap
Using soap on the inside of the birdhouse is a proven way to deter wasps. You can use the soap on the inside of the birdhouse roof.
This makes it very slick so that the wasps won’t be able to attach nests to the roof. They’ll move on to another location once they realize that the birdhouse isn’t viable.
A method like this will work to deter wasps, but it could be bad for the birds. You don’t want the birds to get soap on their feathers because it could prevent them from being able to fly properly.
Thus, you must ensure that the entrance hole is at least a few inches away from the roof. This should keep the soap from being an issue since the birds shouldn’t come into contact with it.
The soap method truly is one of the best ways to keep both bees and wasps from living in your birdhouses. Just be sure to take the right precautions or you could inadvertently harm the birds as well.
Final Thoughts
After learning about how to get rid of bees and wasps in birdhouses, you should feel more confident. This is a common issue that many people have to deal with.
Despite it being a common problem, it’s still one that should be approached with caution. Both bees and wasps have the potential to be dangerous to certain people.
Some people are allergic to bee and wasp stings. You might not want to try to remove bees or wasps from birdhouses on your own.
One of the easiest ways to approach this topic is to call professionals. A local pest removal or extermination service can assist you.
This is going to cost money, but it’s a reliable way to get rid of bees or wasps in a timely fashion. You can ensure that your birdhouse will be usable in the future after getting rid of the bees.
You can try to handle the situation yourself if you’re so inclined. It’s recommended to use soap spray instead of insecticide.
Insecticide could be harmful to the birds that you want to attract. A simple mixture of liquid soap and water can be used to kill bees and wasps.
Knocking the nest down and killing the bees and wasps is an option. However, you could easily get stung if you’re not wearing protective gear.
There’s also the fact that killing bees isn’t generally considered to be wise. Bees are an important part of the local ecosystem, and they should be respected.
In some cases, people will look into having bees relocated rather than exterminating them. You can decide what the best choice is for yourself.
Think about everything that you’ve learned and then move forward when you’re ready to decide the best course of action. You can get the bees or wasps out of the birdhouses without it being a huge deal.
Ben has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies, you can find him at home with wife and two daughters. Outside of family, He loves grilling and barbequing on his Big Green Egg and Blackstone Griddle, as well as working on projects around the house.
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