Bees are important insects that do great work for the environment. More specifically, they help to pollinate flowers and make honey.
As crucial as these little creatures are, they can be a considerable nuisance when they choose to make your home theirs, especially your patio.
Apart from the unsanitariness of beehives, there is always a risk that you could have a run-in with one or two and get stung.
There are ways to keep bees away from your patio, especially your patio umbrella. And that’s all this article is about.
Keeping bees away from your home requires repeated efforts. If you successfully keep them away in one moment, you may return in a few weeks to find that they have reclaimed their spots.
So, proper care and maintenance of your outdoor furniture and home generally play a significant role in keeping bees away.
- Identifying the things that attract bees to your patio can help you decide how to reorganize or replace certain items.
- As you may already know, bees love flowers, as it is their job to help them grow. You may have to check your garden and take out flowers that could attract bees to your environment.
- Bees cannot stand the smell of garlic, peppers, cinnamon, and essential oils. You could place these strategically around your home to repel bees or redirect them away from your patio umbrella.
The following headings outline six ways to keep bees out of your patio umbrella. You will also find insightful tips for handling bees in our FAQ section.
6 Ways To Keep Bees Out of Patio Umbrellas
Keeping bees out of your patio umbrella requires some maintenance and vigilance on your part.
When you pay little attention to the state of your patio, pests could take over in a matter of days.
Sadly, it’s not as easy to get them out as it is to let them in. So, it’s best to prevent them from finding your patio suitable.
1. Replace or Get Rid of Bad Umbrellas
If the wood in your umbrella is rotten or has holes and corners, bees could find their way in and settle down.
It would be hard to get such bees out of the patio umbrella because you may be unable to tell where they are coming from.
Also, if your umbrella is dented or broken, the chances that you would abandon it or pay little attention to it are high.
Over time, dust and dirt would accumulate, and opportunistic bees would see it as a place where they could build homes and live undisturbed.
Instead, you should ensure that damaged umbrellas are fixed or replaced as soon as possible. It would be best if you also took measures to preserve the wood of your patio umbrella.
2. Remove Patio Furniture
Besides your umbrella, several items around your house can encourage bees to make a hive. For instance: abandoned buckets, unused equipment, untended flower pots, pipes, empty boxes, and accessories.
All these are items that constitute clutter and can make it challenging to spot beehives. Bees can squeeze into very small holes, so they don’t need much room.
Decluttering will attract bees if your patio is filled with random objects and excess furniture. What you should do is clear out your yard and make your party as organized as can be.
If there are holes or damages to your walls, floors, or furniture, have those repaired or replaced.
3. Remove Flowers or Plants That Attract Bees
Bees do not choose their homes without confirming that they have a food supply nearby. So if bees have chosen your patio umbrella as their spot, they have a source of food and water nearby.
A bee’s diet consists of nectar and pollen from flowers. So, while flowers around your home can be great for curb appeal and air quality, they can also invite bees to your patio.
At the same time, water can attract bees to your building. If there are places where water collects, such as old flowerpots, pet water bowls, or even gutters, bees will find their way to your home and have enough reason to keep returning.
What you can do, in this instance, is to take out flowers that attract bees from your garden. Some of such flowers are sunflowers, calendula, alyssum, and cleome.
You should also make sure that you eliminate standing water around your home. You could install drains into your flower pots and move your pets’ drinking bowls out of reach.
4. Plant Bee-Repellent Herbs or Trees
Just as some plants and flowers naturally invite bees, there are others that bees do not like to go near. So, instead of making your garden bare or refusing to plant flowers, you can opt for plants that would make your garden beautiful and keep bees away.
Interestingly, there are quite some herbs that repel bees as well. So you get a spice as well as a bee-repelling plant.
Peppermint, lavender, lemongrass, garlic, peppers, cinnamon, and cucumbers are plants that repel bees. These flowers and plants have strong smells, so winds will carry them up and alert bees to move in other directions.
They are potent repellents as vegetation in your garden and homemade. For instance, you could spray peppermint or lavender oil on your patio to keep bees away.
Crushed garlic or pepper spray is also quite effective, although it may not smell pleasant to your nose.
5. Watch Out for Bee Hives
Maintenance is a big part of keeping bees away, and it is the cheapest. You would have to replace or repair things that are broken anyway.
So the fact that doing so also helps to keep bees away is a bonus. Some bees are attracted to the presence of other bees or the smell of their beehives.
An abandoned hive on your patio could attract new bees to take over the spot and use it to make a new hive.
Making routine checks for beehives and frequently cleaning your patio and its furniture would help you spot any abandoned hives and clean them out so that new ones would not be attracted to them.
It would be best if you also watch out for bees. Usually, one or two bees go out as scouts for house hunting. If you see a lone bee hovering around your house, then it’s likely that it’s looking for suitable places to make its home.
After such sightings, you should be watchful to locate any new hives quickly.
6. Use Cinnamon or Vinegar
Cinnamon and vinegar have powerful smells and have been found to work when trying to keep bees away from your patio. These are items you can readily find in your kitchen, home, or store close to you.
If you spot bees hovering around your home, get some cinnamon and sprinkle it around the areas they have been visiting. Upon their return, the smell of cinnamon will make your home less attractive.
You could equally sprinkle vinegar around your patio as a preventive measure so that bees do not come near. Mix some in water or spray some vinegar around your patio umbrella.
Vinegar is perfectly safe and nontoxic, so it won’t harm anyone who inhales it.
Conclusion
Bees are primarily easygoing creatures. But having them in your building is risky, especially for people allergic to bee stings.
You should be able to enjoy a quiet time out on your patio or an evening with your friends without fearing bees.
Of course, it always helps to keep your patio clean and free of hive leftovers so that bees would not feel welcome to reclaim their old home.
Whatever you do, don’t go poking a hive while bees are in it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is There a Natural Deterrent for Bees?
Bees are a part of nature and an integral part of our environment. However, there are instances where their presence is simply a nuisance or people are at risk of allergic reactions or nasty stings.
Now, bees do not choose random flowers to perch on or pollinate. They love some flowers and abstain from others.
So you can introduce plants, flowers, or things that bees are naturally uncomfortable with within your area to deter them from coming. Here are some examples:
- Essential oils like citronella, eucalyptus, peppermint, and geranium can keep bees away.
- Bees cannot stand the strong odor of crushed garlic or fresh cucumber peels. So, you could put these around your windows or in the corners of your patio.
- It would be best if you also cleaned out the sites where beehives used to be.
What Keeps Bees Away?
Bees are quite selective with places where they make their home or hover around. This means they will fly away if they catch a whiff of smells they do not like or find the environment unconducive.
You could place cotton balls soaked with oils like peppermint and citronella around your home to repel them.
Decluttering and keeping a clean yard also reduces the chances of having bees.
