Hey All,
First, let me say thank you Weezie for sending me a PM about this thread. I have been very busy in my garden, flower beds, yard, and with my honeybees lately. So busy that it has made it hard to get any time for anything else!!
Karen, you have a bee there that I've never seen before!
But after looking at the pics of them, I do know some about what they are
not. They are not any kind of hornet, bumble bee, wasp, dirt dauber, or anything like that. They are also not any kind of honeybee that I am familiar with.
The bees that I am most familiar with are honeybees.... Italians, Russians, Germans, and Africanized. And before anyone freaks out about the "Killer" bees (the Africanized bees), let me just say that they are
not in PA!
Knowing bee nature and habit, I would say that they may have built a nest in your garden. The nest may have existed before you disturbed the dirt and had a different entrance. By disturbing the dirt, you may have unwittingly created a new opening to the nest. If you just barely disturbed the nest and the opening was immediately recovered with dirt, it would explain why you only saw one or two bees at first. Most likely they were either bees that escaped through the temporary opening or bees that were in the nest, knew about the disturbance, and came through the original entrance to check out what was going on. I hope that made sense!
Most bees don't fly unless the temps are above 50*F and they usually don't start flying until the sun hits the entrance to their hive/nest. If the nest is in the ground, that would explain your not having seen any of them when the morning was cool, yet they appeared when the sun hit the spot where they are.
In your area you should have a County Agricultural Extention Agent. You should be able to call him/her, describe the bees and find out what they are. The agent will probably also have suggestions as to the best way of handling them.
If you find out what kind of bees they are, I hope you will share the information with us. I'd sure like to know what they are!!
Good luck and bee good!
Robert
By the way.... do make sure to keep the little one away from them. Contrary to popular belief, a couple of stings from flying insects are very rarely lethal. Most of the time it is just a very painful and unpleasant experience! However, in young children and the elderly, stings can cause more adverse reactions such as dificulty breathing, heart palpations, and excessive swelling. Best not to take a chance with a little one!!