Bees in the house - but what about my guinea pigs?

[Sue and Smartie]

A swarm of bees has gone into our chimney. Quite a few of them are now inside the woodburner (not lit!). Tomorrow we have got the chimney sweep coming to see if he can encourage them to move out, but the ones in the woodburner will have to be let out through our house.
We are going to block up all the windows, shut the cats away safely, and open up the back doors so that the bees only have one light source to aim for. Hopefully they will fly out through it. I can't move the Piggy Palace (it's far too heavy) and that's right by the back door.
So what I'd like to know is, would it be OK to cover up the Piggy Palace with a blanket so that stray bees can't fly into their space? Just while we are evicting those bees which have made it down to the bottom of the chimney, that is. I am not sure how long this will take to do so I don't want to put them in their carry box in case it takes ages.

 

[PigglePuggle]

In this weather I would use a thin cotton sheet not a blanket to cover the cage, a blanket would get very hot and stuffy!
But covering the cage shouldnt be an issue, piggies often love that and find it a bit of an adventure

 

[Swissgreys]

A sheet or some lightweight mesh material would be best.
Covering the cage is a good idea though.

 

[Sue and Smartie]

Thanks.
My living room is actually quite cool but I will see if I can find the dustsheets I have and use those (bit short of bedsheets since one of the cats used one as a scratching pad...). It will be like twilight at midday for the piggies

 

[Qualcast&Flymo]

Do you mean honeybees? Or are they wasps?
If they are honeybees, you can get a beekeeper to come and collect them for free.

Edited to add:
I've just looked at the British Bee Keepers Association website (bbka.org.uk) and it says that they can't normally collect swarms in chimneys, which may be feral colonies; but there are some links in their Swarm Removal section about Bees in Buildings and how to deal with them which may be useful. I'd have thought that a chimney sweep could get seriously stung unless he's properly equipped and experienced at removing bees

 

[Sue and Smartie]

They are honeybees and we have contacted a beekeeper. He cannot remove bees from a chimney as there is no way to access the queen.
The sweep says we are about the 6th people to call for help with this, in the last few weeks, so he has dealt with it many times I should think. We have already had a look at that website, and from what they say there our only other option would be pest control which would kill them all. That's our last resort

 

[Sue and Smartie]

It did not quite go as planned due to a miscalculation on our part. We assumed the swarm arrived on Saturday, as that's when my husband first saw the bees massing on the chimney. It turns out the bees had been in the chimney for quite some time, judging by the amount of honey that came down the chimney.
But the chimney is now clear so we have a small smoky fire burning in the woodburner now, to encourage the remaining bees (still hanging around at the top of the chimney) to buzz off.

The guinea pigs are safe under their old sheet and it will stay there until we are certain there are no more bees inside the house.

 

[LondonLady]

I'm glad you've managed to get rid of (most of) the bees. This sounds like my worst nightmare. I have a bit of a phobia around bees and I nearly freaked out the other day when a huge one flew into the piggies room and settled on the inside of the window. I dragged the cage away from the window (poor things must have wondered what was happening) and managed to 'encourage' the bee out with a newspaper. I was shaking and my heart was pounding the whole time.