Imagine sleeping with your head next to 10,000 bees, separated from your pillow by just 13mm of paper and plaster. The stuff of nightmares or just buzzy dreams?

We struck an unusual situation when called to deal with a bee problem in the bedroom wall of a Sippy Downs home. It is highly unusual to find bees entering a nest via two locations so far apart - holes at the top of the wall and the weep-holes at the bottom.

Upon further investigation with our infrared camera, a newly established beehive (less than a week old) was located about halfway up the wall. This unusual location explained why the bees were entering from the top and the bottom of the wall, as both entry points were about equal distance apart.

In most cases, if the swarm enters the wall at the bottom, they will crawl up to the first cross-member (either a nog or the underside of a window sill) to begin building comb. However, if they come in through the top of the wall, the comb building usually starts on the underside of the top plate.

Despite the unique location of this beehive, the most common place we remove bee nests is from the walls of brick veneer homes, which is not surprising given that this is the most common building technique for houses in our region. But brick veneer is particularly susceptible to attracting bee swarms for two main reasons. Firstly, there is an ideal cavity inside the wall between the brick and the internal plasterboard lining. Secondly, bees can access the cavity via the weep-holes that are intermittently spaced along the length of the walls. These holes fit the criteria bees look for when choosing a new home - small and easily defended.

The weep-holes have an essential function for the building, allowing ventilation to prevent the build-up of moisture and mould. In addition, bricks are porous, and enough constant wind-driven rain can even penetrate walls, running down the inside of the brickwork and out through the weep-holes; an excellent reason not to block them.

How to prevent bees entering weep-holes.
Ventilated weep-hole blockers can be purchased from most hardware stores. A cheaper alternative is aluminium insect mesh, cut to size and pushed into the weep-holes with a blunt stick (to prevent tearing). This little weekend job could just stop a swarm calling your home, their home in the future.