I have one "vanilla" HF greenhouse (the other two are from Shezrie's mod). Stopped by there to pick Jazbay for Avrusa Sarethi, opened the doors and the greenhouse was swarming with butterflies and moths! Is that normal? I closed the doors - don't want to have them all over the house!

yes, very normal, and you'll also get bees. The butterflies and moths won't get in the house, but the bees will. The bees annoy me to no end! Even with closed doors, the bees may still get out. Also, your steward and/or housecarl may open the door in their 'rounds'.

This actually drove me out of my first vanilla HF house. I couldn't stand it. Day and night, the buzzing. It was worse than listening to Lydia's endless 'chewing' at Breezehome.

Well, at least it's not just me! I'll just grab them all and store them away. Do we have any idea how fast they respawn?

I'm not sure, it's probably somewhere in the UESP. I seem to remember that the stupid bees respawned fairly quickly, that's all I know. Felt like every time my character came home, the first thing she did was gather bees, so that her 'player' didn't have to listen to them! Also seemed like one always got stuck in the wall and I had to listen to it anyway.

Eh, well, I deleted the beehive husk - maybe that will keep them down to a dull roar. Took me 15 minutes or more to catch them all, bees and butterflies.... /grumble

The wiki say the HF houses never respawn, however I think this is disputable. While I've never had a trunk, dresser, end table, etc, respawn, I've had misc items constantly respawn both inside and outside the Lakeview Manor home. I ended up with about 6 Woodsman's Friends because it kept regenerating them!

The wiki is wrong. Every item you can add to inventory will respawn. Makes it hard to decorate, just have to put things in empty spaces. It's why I build a kitchen on the property I'm not going to use. From time to time I go there to raid food, grab elf ears, etc. It all respawns.

I don't mind the butterflies, at least they are quiet, and my character uses them for alchemy anyway. I have no use for the bees or any potion made with them.

I ended up deleting the HF house I built at Lakeview and just modding my own house. I wanted something more versatile. It always bothered me how all the HF houses are basically the same, and if you want certain features, you're forced use only certain room styles. I wanted my kitchen in the back where the storage room is, and the bedrooms to use the kitchen/greenhouse room style, with my library and enchanting/alchemy area upstairs where the bedrooms are. I also wanted a bigger garden outside with more straight rows for my crops rather than a small jumble. And the best part? No bees!

It's been a while since I built a hearthfire house. I buy the land, then use the CK to make my own place. Now I kind of want to build a vanilla hearthfire house just for the bees.

I got a shock when this happened at one of my homes. It also happens over the fish pond thingy at Windstad manor but with dragonflies.

It's a little frustrating but you can catch them if you're sharp enough. All of them are useful ingredients for making potions with and some are the more difficult to catch in the wild or buy from merchants. I guess that's the idea behind the greenhouse flutter-byes. Plant what you most use in the alchemy tower and the other ingredients spawn when your plants and mushy-rooms grow...sweet!

I like them.

I suppose if you use a lot of alchemy that would be handy. The most I ever make are health and cure disease potions. But that's pretty rare lately since they're located in abundance in every dungeon, and I've got an insane stock pile of them at my house. lol

I never knew this... I'm going to have to plant up those beds just to see this happen.

Oh yeah, the gardens and greenhouse are great for alchemists! Though in the future, if my character ever builds one, I will console command the bees away!