To understand how to properly remove a nest, and stop it from coming back, you need to know a thing or two about how bees live, and what they look for in nature in order to survive successfully.

Honeybees build a nest, or hive, and fill it with wax (known as comb), honey, beebread, larvae and more. There are multiple players in the hive including the Queen, Workerbees, Nurse bees and Drones.  Each is busy carrying out its specific and unique tasks to ensure its survival.

Year after year the Honeybee (Apis Mellifera) reproduces by what is known as swarming.  A swarm happens typically during spring or summer when a successful and overwintered colony creates new queens and gathers a small army, as many as 10 or 20 thousand bees, to split off and make a new colony.

In nature, scout bees and swarms seek new shelter in tree hollows – wooden enclosures around 10 gallons, or 40 liters, more or less.   Tree hollows provide protection from wind and rain, and insulation from cold and frost.  Most often they also seek locations about 10 to 15 feet off the ground, which provides protection from nature’s scavengers (skunks, bears, mice, etc).    So these three ingredients – wood, insulation, and space are very attractive to a wandering colony, and draw it back year after year if it is accessible.

So it turns out, we humans provide the perfect opportunity for these wandering little pollinators!  With as little as 1/4 crack in the wall, floor, or attic space, residences and office complexes are offering an open invitation for an excellent would-bee home.  

Honey Bros Rescue provides a free inspection using high performance thermal imaging to determine the full extent of the colony in your walls, floor, or attic. Colonies can occupy as many as 50 cubic feet of space!  We then access the cavity carefully, and remove their comb, piece by piece.   Comb must be removed, or bees will reuse it year after year.  We try to capture the queen with a special clip, and vacuum up the other bees (very few are harmed in the process!).  These survivor bees are relocated to a new, naturally managed hive where they have a 200% greater chance to make it than in nature.

Importantly, even if a colony dies off in your house, your home retains a distinct scent… to be discovered next spring by scout bees, miles away.  Poison is a temporary solution for your problem at best, if you can find a company willing to administer it.  At worst, it leaves you with an annual expense that is harmful to the bees, to your home, and to your checkbook.  Call an expert. Let us remove their comb and seal off the area as well as possible.

Call us today for a free inspection and quote.