Hello. I have some very busy sweat bees in our front yard soil - about 3 feet or 1 meter from our house foundation. Three entrances and extremely active little guys and gals. I have read the tunnels in the soil go down about 10 to 25 cm with nesting areas running of off the entrances. I was wondering if anyone knows how wide the nest can get ? I love the little green bees, but am concerned the may dig towards and nest in our house foundation. Thanks for any help ?
Can you make a different area of your yard a bit more attractive to them? maybe they’ll move.
Found these:
How to Get Rid of Sweat Bees: Natural Methods for Humane Redirecting (Humane redirecting sounds relevant to what you want)
Help! I found a sweat bee nest - Nature Talk - iNaturalist Community Forum (This person put a nest back that they accidentally unearthed…so maybe you could unearth them and move them?)
I can ponder that awhile, one issue is they have burrowed in a narrow area between houses, and are also close to my nieghbours. I would need to move them a significant distance.
Maybe the suggestions on the first link will serve you better, then.
eg, here’s part of that page:
I don’t get the insecticide part for increasing their population (eliminating competition? But they didn’t mention an insecticide that would be harmless to the bees while harming other insects. Maybe it’s a typo & they meant repellant, not insecticide?), but the other info about making them want to move to a different area seems useful.
Do they overwinter or can you maybe fill in their tunnels if they leave after a season?
A solitary bee will built a tunnel slighly larger than an eartworm hole… absolutely no reason to bother them or fear for your skyscraper.
I hope you took a foto uploaded it on iNat in order to identify them, and learn more about them.
I think you responded to the wrong person. It’s not my house/topic.
I can only hope this conversion is a hoax.
Thanks for the input, they are really interesting little bees, great metallic
green colour, I will attach an image of the 3 entrances. The nest was present last year, but this year after a harsh Canadian winter we have 3 entrances instead of one. We are not scared of the little bees, but was worried the nest would creep over a few feet to the house foundation.
Looking great! I am happy your garden is a beehaven where pollinators feel safe enough to live and reproduce. As i already said: Tunnels of solitary bees are tiny and will not damage your home.
For proper identification we need better fotos of the bees. And please upload them to inaturalist.org not to the forum.
Thank you for your knowledge and reply. I will send the lovely bride out this weekend to get some pictures, and post them in the appropriate location.. I have mobility issues, would need the Hubble telescope if I took the pictures. Cheers…
I don’t know what you mean in this context.
My suggestions particularly re: encouraging the sweat bees to relocate were meant to address Beehaven’s concerns.
I made no comments re: the validity of those concerns (perhaps I should have), which is why I pointed out you should be addressing your reply that this is a non-issue to them instead of me.
So, not a hoax 
, but I may have been a little pedantic and defensive.
Hi @Beehaven , I’m not certain that green sweatbees are much of a concern wrt foundations. Whereabouts are you in Canada? I’m with @mreith in that there does not seem to be much need for concern. They likely have an easier time nesting in your soil which looks like it is a fine sandy soil.
My neighbours lawn was uncared for, therefore had many plant species in place, plus had great hosting sandy soil and I was able to monitor at least 5 species of bees were well hosted in that soil and provided those species to pollinate our neighbourhood. At the same time they were performing bioturbation for that soil - bringing nitrogen and other elements deeper into the soil enriching it. I now, in a way, mourn the loss of that whole community as they are now developing that property and hauled away all but 3m sq. of soil down 2-5 metres in order to build a triplex and replace what was soil with gravel now to be topped by sterile top soil for a monoculture lawn and a concrete abyss.
Unfortunate for nieghbours lawn, many many people do not understand the importance of our litle pollinating friends - and prefer a modern sterile look. We are located in south west Toronto, near a creek - its kinda like Jumanji and Jurassic Park around here - coyotes, gophers, possum, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, Blue herons in the sky, a ground hog running thru my yard - the size of a SUV - and these little green bee guys. Its a nice little spot in a big, rather ugly city. Cheers…
Proof that TO has gems. Have camped at Indian Line a few times while visiting our nephew.
Mother nature is lurking, just waiting for us to give her a
chance.