European Honey Bee

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European Honey Bee

The European Honey Bee

The European honey bee, also known as apis mellifera, plays a very important role in maintaining the ecological balance. They are honey-producing and help many flowers and crops in pollination. Since they prove to be so helpful, European honey bees are the most popular domesticated honeybee species in the world. Despite being so helpful, these bees can become a pain in the neck by causing stings or allergies to your pets and family.

HOW TO IDENTIFY EUROPEAN HONEY BEES

About half an inch in size.
Yellow and black in color.
Have numerous hair on their bodies
Distinctive feature: Pollen sac on both of their rear legs.

Appearance and Behavior

European honey bee

The appearance of a European honey bee varies according to their classes (worker bees, drones, queens). The worker bees are usually half an inch long, have yellow and black bodies, and have a pollen sac on their rear legs to carry pollen. They have a barbed stinger to use in case their colony is disturbed. These are non-reproductive female bees. Then, there are male drones. Drones are larger in size than the worker bees. Drones have a thick and blunt abdomen while the worker bees have a pointed one. Also, drones do not have stingers. The queens almost look like the worker bees but are a bit larger in size and have a straight stinger. Queen bees do not use their stinger very often, but rarely.

The role of drones is only to mate with the queens. And the worker bees do all other works: protecting the hive, defense, collecting nectar and producing honey. And the queen bee lays eggs and is the only egg layer in the colony.

It is common to see a few European honey bees near or around your house but if you start seeing them in a larger number and observe a buzzing sound from the voids in your house, you can be quite sure of an infestation in your house. Also, if these bugs get attracted too soon over any sugary split in your house, this is a definite sign of a beehive near you.

HOW DO YOU GET EUROPEAN HONEY BEES

European honeybees usually come from the windows left open, or from voids near the windows, or through vents in bathroom or stove, or even through chimney exteriors. They tend to make their hive in cavities. So the most popular habitat for European honeybees is inside the cracks in the walls of your house. They can also come through the chimneys or hollow trees or any other cavity they can locate, or any other place near to flowering plants.

HOW TO GET RID OF EUROPEAN HONEY BEES

Although some cultures believe honeybees to be very lucky and are said to bring prosperity into the households they fly into, but they can be scary if they start sharing your house, right? Below are some home remedies to get rid of the European honeybees:

Mix liquid soap with water and spray it into your garden or the wall voids. This is expected to make the European honeybees go away. For this method to be even more effective, add some mint in the spray.
Put a mothball in a nylon cloth or inside a sock and hang it near the beehive in your home.
Bees are attracted towards sweet odors. Cut a soda bottle into half and pour sweet soda like sprite or dew into it. Bees will come to smell it and drown in the soda.
Bees can also be repelled with the help of odors. Put some garlic powder near the nest of European honeybees and they will find it very difficult to enter their own colony. As a result, they will leave your house and move somewhere else.