A Pleasant Surprise - Honey Bees

Saturday, 29 November 2025 at about 3.45pm whilst doing some gardening, I noticed a honey bee hive. Well to be precise I noticed a bee hive, I suspected it might be honey bees due to their super small stature. But I was not sure. I am just glad it was not a wasp nest.  

I took a picture to google search the image and also ask the experts in my Gardening WhatsApp group. They confirmed it was a honey bee's nest and suggested I get a bee hive box to nest them for "Milking" their honey. They commented these were not stingless bees and suggested caution when going near the nest.

Getting the bee hive box was simple enough as they can be purchased from Shopee for a relatively cheap price but the issue was hot to transfer the hive from the tree into the box? To BEE or not to BEE, that is the question. Which I have yet to find a solution. 

The other issue is that there were many comments in my Gardening WhatsApp group remarking that a few gardeners who had honey bee hives in their garden, the bees eventually in a short time dismantled their hive either due to exposure to the elements like rain, disturbance from humans or even minor issue like watering the plants or taking close up photographs. So it would be risky for me to purchase a bee hive box through Shopee and only to arrive by the sudden dismantling of the hive and the bees departure. That would not make sense at all.

So I'm back to square one. 

One things that pops into mind is to contact a local group that relocates bees called Bee Saviour and get their advise on the best next step. Will keep you, Wonderfull readers posted in due time. 

Close up of the hive. Picture looks huge but it is not. Rather small probably 8 in x 8 in. Due to their small stature, they don't look menacing at all. Not like your normal size bee. Even one of those bee flying around would make me avoid going to the garden. 

This is how the hive looks like from normal distance. They nested on my Christmas tree. I just changed to a slightly bigger pot just barely 1 week ago. This tree is many years old. I purchased it when it was merely 1 feet in height. Now it is taller than a single story house. When I purchased it, the intention was to have lights on it as an external Christmas decoration. It never materialised as I feel it needs much more leaves, to have a merrier look. I guess I need to spend more time on its care and more fertilisers.  

I feel the honey bees picked this tree as it was close by my other flowering plants. This one is my pokok bunga burung. It is called appropriately such as the miniature flowers in pink resembles small birds.

This is Gardenia. Beautiful wonderful fragrant flowers.

This is my kesidang plant. Strong pandan smell from the flowers. Unfortunately, at time of taking this picture, they were not flowering.

There are bunga raya and other flowering plants around but I did not add pictures as they were not flowering. So with an abundance of variety of flowers around the Christmas tree, I was not surprise why they chose that spot.