How to Get Rid of Sweat Bees | Try These 8 Methods

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When you step into the summer months, as exciting as the weather is, it brings along a lot of complications with it, the harsh sun, the constant sweating, bad odor, and so much more. While summer months welcome breezy clothes and deodorants, they also welcome and attract a swarm of sweat bees that are attracted to your sweat. Yes, you heard it right.

Although they aren’t life-threatening or impose bites and stings that leave a bad skin reaction, they are highly annoying and make life more difficult for you. The only issue with sweat bees is that they are annoying. Unless you poke and prod at them, they won’t bring out their stingers.

Wondering how to get rid of sweat bees? This article will explore every option you can try to get rid of the sweat bees effectively without harming them.

Also read: How to Get Rid of Ladybirds? | Top 10 Tips that Work

What are Sweat Bees?

Sweat bees aren’t like the standard bees that you come across. They aren’t busy pollinating flowers and giving us honey. Instead, these insects target your perspiration. As weird as it sounds, it is true. Many sweat bees also work as pollinators, but the percentage is quite low.

Also, they are quite small in size and typically grow up to ½ inches in length. They sport a mixture of colors, including bronze, green, black, and sometimes brown. 

Besides pollinating the flowers and doing their primary job in the ecosystem, sweat bees also need to supplement their diet with the necessary salt. This is the reason why they feed on human sweat. Besides the salt, the sweat also supplements with the necessary amount of moisture that they need to function daily.

Do the Sweat Bees Sting?

If you compare the sting of a sweat bee with the standard bees, it is close to nothing. Sweat bee stings aren’t harsh on the skin, and they don’t induce intense feelings of pain, skin irritation, and the whole shazam.

Their sting is very mild and often goes away with some ice compress or topical ointment on the stung site. Also, they aren’t active stingers, which means that unless you are disturbing them or causing them discomfort, they won’t come and sting you at all.

List of Ways to Get Rid of Sweat Bees

Now that you are not clueless about sweat bees anymore, let us walk you through some of the ways you can get rid of these bees before they start feeding on your sweat.

1. Get Rid of Rotting Wood

As weird as it sounds, sweat bees gravitate towards rotting wood lying around in abundance around your house and garden. We often don’t pay much attention to them, but if you live in areas in the United States that have a lot of sweat bees, we’d recommend that you get rid of these damp, rotting woods immediately.

The reason why we’d recommend doing this is that the sweat bees nest around in such places. Damp spots and sturdy spots like the rocks and logs make for a great spot for them to grow in numbers and nest.

2. Fill in the Burrows

Most pests and insects rise from unkempt gardens and backyards, and sweat bees are yet another crucial example. Much like the logs and the rocks, the sweat bees also create nesting spots around the holes and burrows in the ground of your garden. If you find such spots, it doesn’t matter where in the garden – fill them up immediately and close any passageways.

Like the rotting wood, these open burrows are often another spot where these bees tend to nest and then grow in number. Don’t leave any of these spots open in your backyard.

3. Slather on Insect Repellent

If the manual methods aren’t working out for you and you are looking for something more substantial, insect repelling ointments work. If you are stepping out of the house, you can slather on a good amount of those repellents and call it a day. This works exponentially well, especially for individuals who sweat a lot.

Also, make sure that when you buy any kind of insect repellent, test it out on a small patch of the skin before applying it generously. The last thing you want is to break out. This is one of the easiest ways to get rid of sweat bees.

4. Wear Covering Clothes

If you aren’t a big fan of those insect repellents, especially because of the texture and the smell, you can go the easiest route and wear covering clothes. Instead of wearing half-sleeve shirts or tees, you can switch to full-sleeve options. They work exponentially well and enable you to cover up and prevent these bees from sucking on your sweat.

However, ensure that you don’t wear any constricting fabric or make your skin feel uncomfortable over a longer period of wearing.

5. Kill on Contact

One thing about sweat bees is that they don’t attack you in bulk. So, if you are experiencing an infestation, it will likely be one sweat bee at a time. If that is the case, you can immediately kill it on contact. They are quite responsive and have very quick reflexes. So, if you don’t kill them with immediate effect, the chances are that they will come and swat you again.

You can also use the insect repelling racquets to kill them on the spot. However, your hand should suffice. All you have to do is ensure that you are doing it fast enough.

6. Set Up a Trap

If you notice a lot of sweat bees in your garden or around your house, you need to divert them before they take you down for their meal. The easiest way to do that is by setting up a trap in your backyard. There are several traps available in the market that you can use. However, we’d recommend that to lure the sweat bees into the trap, you need to fill it up with a salt and sugar solution.

Once they come into the trap, the liquid will trap them inside and kill them. You can buy a few of these traps and then hang them around the garden and the house’s perimeter. Just make sure that you change the water and empty the dead sweat bees every few days, so it is effective.

7. Use Insect Repellents

Pesticide
Image Source: https://pixabay.com/vectors/spray-bottle-insecticide-poisonous-24302/

Like most insects, even sweat bees have an aversion to certain smells. This is where the repellents come into play. They are an amazing way to keep the sweat bees out of the vicinity of your home. There is a range of insect repellent diffusers available in the market that you can use.

Like the traps, you can hang these repellent diffusers all around the garden and the house and wait for the sweat bees to come in close contact with them. Once they do, it becomes a lot easier for you to drive them out of the house without doing a lot.

If you want more permanent results, you can use the more potent insect repellents and spray them on the sweat bees to kill them immediately. This is quite a tedious process, and the chemicals in these repellents are also not the best for children or pets when they come in close contact with the same.

8. Contact a Professional

Sometimes, even when you do everything, they aren’t enough. Since sweat bees are often quite difficult to get rid of, it isn’t surprising that you might have to contact a professional exterminator to help you out. They know how not just to eliminate but permanently prevent these insects from returning to your home. 

Just ensure that you hire someone who has the experience and has a good market name. The last thing you want is to spend a lot and reap no benefits.

Still, wondering how to get rid of sweat bees? We hope you aren’t because this article explores all the basic pointers that you need to know. We’d recommend that you practice precaution whenever you step out of the house, wear long-sleeved clothes, and use a repellent to keep them out of your skin and sweat.

Also read: How to Get Rid of Earwigs? | Remedies & Preventive Measures

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Which Home Remedy Kills Sweat Bees?

Sweat bees have an aversion to certain smells, especially peppermint. So, if you find it difficult to get rid of them, spray the garden and the perimeter of the house with peppermint spray.

Will Vinegar Keep Sweat Bees Away?

Most of the sugar traps for the sweat bees contain vinegar in them. Besides the pungent smell, vinegar has mildly acidic properties, immediately killing the bees.

How Long Do Sweat Bees Last?

The lifespan of a sweat bee is around 3-4 months, which is quite a staple. So, we’d recommend working fast before they multiply further.

By James Edwards

James Edwards is a writer & editor with almost 15 years of experience from Murphys, California. He earned his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University.

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