Honey Bee Colony Removal
Safety Around Honey BeesOne percent of the human population is allergic to bee stings. These individuals should take every precaution to avoid bee stings because one sting can be immediately life-threatening. An available prescription sting kit is highly recommended for these individuals during outside activities.
WARNING: Honey bee removal from structures is not a job for a person who has never worked around stinging insects or even a novice beekeeper. Sometimes, this work is done while standing on a ladder with hundreds of angry bees trying to protect their home. Bee removal can be unnerving to even the experienced beekeeper and lead to accidents
Why did the bees pick my house?Bees are interested in any type of void that will offer protection. These voids include, but are not limited to; chimneys, wall voids, attics, crawl space, barbeque's, irrigation valve box, trees and bushes, debris stacked in a way where it will create a nice living space for bees, etc…
What are the bees doing?Typically a new bee hive consists of four to six thousand bees. They can swarm to their chosen location and move into a structure in as little as 15 minutes. After they have moved in, about 10-25 bees will be traveling to and from this location throughout the day. These bees are called worker bees. It is their job to forage for food for the rest of the hive. Upon their return to the hive, they are filled with nectar and are carrying pollen, which are their building materials to make honeycomb and grow their hive.
The bees will start working the same day that they move into their new home. A new bee hive can start to build anywhere from half a pound to a pound of honeycomb per day. This is why it is important to get any bee infestations taken care of as soon as possible, to limit the amount of honeycomb produced so that structural removals and repairs will not be necessary.
After the bees have been there for seven days or longer, they will have built enough honeycomb to create other problems for the structure. Some of these problems include; honey melting which causes noticeable stains and structural damages, new bee hives returning to the area because they can smell the honey and assume it is a place to live, wax moths, ants and rodents that will want to come and feed on honey and establish nests near by.
Will the bee’s just leave on there own if I don’t do anything about it?No, if left alone the bees will just continue working, building more and more honey and laying more and more eggs. Eventually, your bee hive can grow to be hundreds of pounds and up to sixty thousand bees.
Soon the hive will get so big that the original Queen will not be able to communicate with all of the bees in her hive any more. In this case, the bees will lay a new Queen. This new Queen will take a portion of the bees with her and leave the hive. A lot of swarming activity can be seen when the split is taking place. Typically they will build their new hive close to where they originally came from.
Can I just exterminate the bees and seal the hole up?No. There are a couple of reasons why this would not work. First, if honeycomb is present in your structure and no bees to maintain it after the extermination it will begin to melt causing noticeable stains and structural damages. Second, if the honeycomb is left there, even if it is sealed up, other bees will be able to smell it and will come looking for the source of the smell. They will either dig through the seal or they will establish their new hive somewhere along the structure. Third, eventually wax moths will begin to appear eating wax along with rodents and ants coming to eat honey and establish nests.
