We walked into the music room the other night to find a few dozen bees dead, dying or still flying in the room.  It wasn't until the next morning that we discovered the cause.  There was a cloud of honeybees outside the window.  Actually it took us a while to determine what they were.  Everyday there were different makes and models. And more and more were coming into the house via the chandelier.  Our landlord was on holiday so it took some 3 days before we reached one of the farmhands.  He was on his phone calling the exterminator before he reached my door.  

Turns out this is a big. deal. 

The pest man explained these were feral bees.  The queen escaped from someplace and decided to live inside the walls of the house. They were hunkered down between the first and second floor She releases phermones which bring along some 2,000+ worker bees after her.  As days progress there were different bees arriving or moving about.  Therefore first we saw rather hairless large narrow bees.  The last day we saw tiny round bumblebees.  Juveniles, he said they were. 

Sadly they could not be relocated because the queen could not be coaxed from the house.  It is a serious offense here not to seal up such bee hangouts.  They can locate all the local bee keepers and determine if any have swarmed and you can be liable for thousands in fines for 'luring' bees.  So there was a quick and thorough job of this whole thing done on the spot. 

There must be something in the air though.  My husband sent a picture from work of a huge swarm that had gathered at one of the buildings there.  Thousands and thousands in a huge huddle. Quite impressive.  We are told that in that sort of case they can relocate them more easily.  Bees are relatively docile when in a swarm that way. What we saw (pictured) was them doing their figure eight 'dance' in front of the hole in the brick facade.  They say they can identify and account for each bee which enters a hive that way.  The bees can ID each other that is. <g> 

So, we got a real life, hands on lesson in honeybees and will be reading more in coming days.