Bee's in our place of work

We have discovered a bee investigation in our warehouse area at work. We found the hole in the wall where they are coming from. The odd part is that they are swarming around the florescent lights. Why would that be so?

 

Actually bees are attracted to light. Many people don't realize it because bees are not generally out at night so the trait is not often seen.

 

suspect they may believe the light is a way out of the building.

 

There are hundreds of kinds of bees, so "bee" is not too descriptive. The first thing most people would think of is the domestic honey bee. But there are hundreds of other "wild" bees. Identifying exactly what kind of bee it is would be a start. Some don't know the difference between bees and wasps... could be coming from discarded soda pop cans for all we know.

And FWIW, this is what bees look like when they "swarm." (http://lazybfarm.files.wordpress.com..._may2010-2.jpg)

Is that what's hanging on your lights? Or do you mean they are buzzing around?

 

Buzzing around is a better description.

We'll cement up the hole on the outside of the building.

 

Don’t seal up any entry/exits until the nest is removed or exterminated and then wait until several days of no activity.

Sealing up the holes, especially their exterior entry/exit, can back fire badly and the interior of the shop could look like a bad horror movie. I’ve seen well intentioned diy’ers do that and have that happen. Those that are in the wall and those that are outside will actively make more exits quickly. They will also be very agitated.

They are attracted to the lights for the light and warmth as others have pointed out.

It would be helpful to know the particular specie of bee as honeybees may have a large nest that would require physical removal as the honey, combs, larvae, etc will decompose and cause a mess and odor. Even large yellow jacket nests will have a lot of decomposing organic matter that will have a bad odor. It’s still early in the season so the nests may not be so far along in development.

 

PABug,

Thanks for the reply.
I sent your reply to my boss to consider. We found another opening that they are coming through. But I think it's very early and only been a few days. I think the openings are from a rework from the power company that had to run another line into our building during early winter from a catastrophic power failure. They removed brackets attached to the building and attached new ones but never patched the old holes.