Bees in the house

Anyone else get bees in the house over the winter?

The first 12 weeks of burning I had no trouble with bees. I brought 1 full cord of 5 year css cherry in at a time. First cord in november and the second cord about 6 weeks later. This wood came from my brother's house and was never covered. No bees in this wood, but I noticed a few mosquitoes and gnats.

In February I brought in a third cord. This time, from a 2+ year stack that was css and top covered here with roofing rubber. We killed about 20 bees in the basement in the next two weeks after the wood warmed up.

In March I brought in about 2/3's of a cord and killed a few more bees. This wood was from the same stack as the month before.

The bees were at least three different kinds so I dont think there was a nest in just one round. I think these bees were probably under the bark and well hidden/hibernating. This is the first time in the 5 years I've been burning that this happened.

My thought is, these bees may be in the stacks that are covered more than the uncovered stacks.

Anyone else getting bees?

 

I believe there were carpenter bees, wasps and yellow jackets. I don't know much about any of them for sure but I do know I'm allergic to the stings, so...
For the record, they all died just the same

 

Funny you mention that, Thur eve I brought some wood in off a pile that was mostly beech and ash, same pile though I worked from many times. 4 bees about an hour later.

 

Not sure if wood species might make a difference or not. To my knowledge I've never burned any beech, but there was a lot of ash in this stack. It was mostly (3/4) oak with some ash, pine, poplar, mulberry and a variety of other unknown pieces from a neighbors property.

 

In the past maybe 1 or 2 a year. This year I lost count.

 

Could BEE...........................

 

I have to “inspect” all the wood I bring in -Yellow Jacket queens like to hybernate in my stacks. The Mrs. is none-to-happy when one of them things starts buzzing around!

Neither am I!

 

I had a yellow jacket nest in the dirt, under where I was building a new wood stack. I sprayed it with Hornet Jet. I guess I'll find out in a couple of years if any suvivors colonized the stack.

 

Never seen any bees get in the house from wood. But, on the rare occasion that one does get in the house, we use those electric fly swatters to eliminate them.

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Those were probably ground hornets. * I’ve had that happen to me before too and I couldn’t get at their nest due to the stack of wood now protecting them. Ended up just dodging them while I finished the stack and they didn’t come back the next year.

Ive seen some carpenter bee holes in the end of my splits too but never had one in the house. For very long anyway.

We use the Backwoods Savage method here. The wood stays outside on the porch until it goes in the stove. Usually only ever see bugs escape their fate on days where it’s warmer outside.

[EDIT] Turns out “ground hornet” is something I made up. The ones I see here have white stripes when they live underground vs yellow then they build an above ground paper nest. But the correct common term for both is indeed “yellow jacket”.

 

The Waspinator!

 

I’ve had a few crawl out of the wood, never any large amount though. And I store a little over 2 cords at a time in my basement.

 

I’ve had one or two fall out over the years when bringing wood in and setting it down before loading the stove, but no wood comes in the house until it’s ready for the stove.

I saw a yellow jacket nest (or whatever little bastages that live in the ground are) a few years back over by my stacks when mowing. Lucky for me I saw the activity before I mowed over it. Once night came, a good dump of gas near the nest, a 6 foot or so gasoline trail and a match took care of the problem.

 

I seem to find them with the weedeater...

 

So today I’m really under the weather - food poisoning or flu I ca t decide which - leaning towards food poisioning\norovirus - in any case I can’t do nothing - worst I’ve felt in years ugh. Good thing yesterday I brought a few days of wood into the house - The Mrs. is tending to the stove - she’s doing a bang-up job too - except she says there is a Yellow-Jacket buzzing around in the stove room.

I suspect the Yellow Jacket is toast.