Bee(s) in cooling system??

I’m in the middle of a partial rebuild of a new to me 3RZ. I’ve done my best to mask off and plug any holes where I didn’t want debris to enter.

yesterday while working on the truck a honeybee crawled into the coolant tube in the picture below. A few minutes later another bee was very clearly trying to enter the exact same tube.

I blocked it off with a clear plastic bottle in an attempt to trap any bees as they left but two days later and nothing has come out.

my assumption is that since I work on the car everyday 1 maybe 2 bees have crawled in there and most likely died. How concerned should I be and does anyone have any idea on how I could flush them out?

 

They are most likely the mud packing kind of bee. And they are annoying.
If any coolant remains in the tube, it killed them.
Leave the bottle on the tube.
Then when you are finished working on it and ready to put coolant back in, try to pressurize/flush the system with water. They may come out.
If not remove the entire tube to make sure it's not plugged with mud.
Other than that, I'm clueless cause I don't know what that tube goes to.

 

take the hose off & shoot compressed air through it...

 

thanks I appreciate the responses. I inspected the tube it entered and it is clear so it must be somewhere further down.

From what I understand if the bee went up it would get to the heater core and if it went down it would go to the cylinder head rear tube cover.

 

No wonder coolant smells sweet

 

You can easily reverse flush the heater core using a garden hose...

 

Thanks for the idea slater. I'll try to get to that today or tomorrow before my coolant turns to honey..

 

bee careful