Help! Wasps or bees?

That’s awesome. They have a similar display at the Butterfly House in St. Louis Missouri.

Call what amounts to a local conservation agent. Bees are big business, and in the states a beekeeper will gladly re-locate the swarm for you. Don’t try to remove them yourselves, and certainly don’t do anything to harm them. Bees are very beneficial and are facing some tough challenges right now with massive hive collapses.

Look like bees to me. I don’t think that wasps swarm like that.

Bees. and @ibstubro is correct, live bee colonies are valuable and good for the environment. (although not in your home).

This is a good thing to find.

Definitely bees. Swarming. And their bodies are too thick and elliptical to be a wasp.

Are these guys close to you? They might help.

Echo here. Definitely bees. Definitely valuable. Definitely call a keeper to have them relocated. Make sure it is not a beginner in the business, but someone who has relocated bees before. It is not difficult, but it must be done right, or the whole hive could perish.
Bee population has suffered a horrible blow in the last decade. Someone will be glad to take them away safely. The clean up after will be challenging, but fear not for stragglers, there will be none.

Definitely bees. I can see the honeycomb. I would contact a professional apiarist (or apiculteur) to have them relocated.

Absolutely call an experienced apiculteur to relocate them to a nesting site where they are needed.

And remember, thanks to their tireless pollination of vegetables, fruits & other food crops (not to mention lovely flowers), bees and their kin really are mankind’s best friends in the insect world. They deserve our support and encouragement if they are to survive and thrive.

Call a local bee keeper. They may be able to remove the swarm without killing all of the bees.

Honestly, I’d leave them. This would probably bee my favorite room in the house. Make up for all my failed ant colonies as a kid.

Honeybees are non-aggressive almost no danger if the hive isn’t provoked. The past couple of years my birdbath has been a beepond in the spring. I add a large rock and a partially submerged stick that can crawl on to drink. I clean the bath with them flying around impatiently (questioningly) and they never bother me. Don’t even seem to light on my clothing.

Super rare opportunity to observe nature from the comfort of your own home.

Caveat: Check that the bees are not harming/deteriorating the wood work of the window frame. No, I don’t want the swarm in the house or causing $5,000 physical damage.

Sniff the window area. I bet it smells like heaven. Honey caramels. Can you make this the family room so the kids grow up with science/nature/wildlife as a part of life?

They’re Honey Bees. A professional Honey Bee keeper would to remove (not kill) them for you for a small fee. I’ve managed Honey Bee hives for several years and though I’m not a professional I’d be happy to remove that hive for you for free. And I’ll give you half of the honey.
Good luck!

It’s bad news from France. The hive was causing damage to the window and was too near the front door so my husband has killed the bees. I’m really quite upset about this (and have been dreading telling you all since you have been giving me some great advice and your love for bees is shining through your answers). I have made sure he is getting rid of all traces of the honeycomb so that other neighbourhood nests are not affected.

I want to redress this and build a hive at the bottom of the garden. There is a great little corner tucked away that I will leave unmown and sow meadow flowers there also. So will bees come if I build a simple wooden hive?

No. The bees will only live where their queen is. It would have been a simple matter to relocate them. The Queen is put into a container she cannot escape, but allows for her scent to reach the other bees. Wherever she is relocated, every last bee will follow.
It is not just a simple matter of liking bees. They are crucial to Earth’s environments, and due to crossbreeding, unique weather, and human carelessness, they are in severe jeopardy.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/15/honeybee-deaths-too-high-longterm-survival

So no bees will move into a hive? How come they moved in to the window space then?

Unfortunately, a bee hive is not like a bird house where, basically, if you build it, they will come. Your husband destroyed a small natural wonder. I see a lot of information on buying and keeping bees, but little on starting a natural, self sustaining swarm.
I’d be interested on having a swarm on my rural Midwestern property, but I don’t want to “keep” bees. They’re welcome to live here, in other words, but there’s no housekeeping included. I’m guessing you’re thinking the same, @Stinley.

@ibstubro exactly. I found this procedure on a forum
1. Raise the swarm box up to at least five feet off the ground. The height off the ground is one of the key features
2. Put the box in a good position, such as south facing but with a LITTLE shade, and sheltered from the wind.
3. Put in some old combs… even very old battered ones are ok as an attractant. Smear the combs with a little old honey and keep renewing it as necessary.
4. Can use lemon grass oil and can smear the inside of the box with beeswax.
5. Make sure the box is in place some time before the swarming season.
The way it works is that bees from all over come to steal the honey. When bees are looking for a new home when they swarm, some of the scouts ‘remember’ your hive location, and are quite likely to choose this in preference to other holes in trees etc.

I will do this for next year. As I say, I am pretty upset about this and if I’d known it was going to end so horribly, I wouldn’t have shared it here, certainly not so flippantly. Please – no more recriminations, just help to make a home for some bees next year.

I think you have an advantage, @Stinley, in that honey bees are native to Europe. Here in the Midwest US, they are big business are the bees are moved all year to follow the pollen. I’m unsure if bees would even survive if I attracted some to swarm.

I turned my birdbath into a bee pond the last couple of Springs. Even that’s a pain, as you have to keep it very clean or they’ll quit you quick. All it takes is a good sized bird bath, a large rock or two and maybe a stick. Keep the bath full and clean and make sure the rock and stick are far enough out of the water for good landing. If you overflow the bath every day or so, it will keep it clean enough for quite a while.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!To comfort fellow bee – concerned jellies, I will share some information I just learned!!
! http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/morgan-freeman-is-now-a-beekeeper !
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bee update. More bees turned up this year but there have been no deaths. My dear husband has made friends with the neighbour and his beekeeping friend!

They took one swarm away a couple of weeks ago but there were two more that arrived after that. Bee man has put a hive on the roof and taken down the combs. Apparently the bees will move to the hive and he’ll come and take the hive away in a week. Yay! Happy bees and happy me.

Thanks for the update, @Stinley.

My bees are hanging around a lot longer this year.