Beekeepers Buzz About Live Bee Removal
3 pros!
Beekeepers say eco-friendly bee removal is a humane way to get rid of bees on your property.
If you find a beehive near your home, you may feel momentary concern and feel the need to contact a pest control expert. However, even large colonies of 50,000 bees are often docile when left alone. Because bees contribute so much to the environment and the nearby ecosystem, you may not want to use pesticides to get rid of bees.
According to the International Bee Research Association, the average bee colony can contain 50,000 honeybees, a statistic that may make some homeowners uncomfortable. However, due to colony collapse disorder — the sudden die-off in honeybee colonies — many homeowners are considering live bee removal as an eco-friendly option to rid their homes of honeybees.
Kate Franzman started Bee Public after working on an urban farm. (Photo courtesy of Kate Franzman)
Honeybees and agriculture
“One out of three bites of food that we eat was made possible because a bee pollinated a plant,” says Kate Franzman, founder of Bee Public. The Indianapolis organization’s mission is to increase the number of honeybees and support a local sustainable food system with pollination and cultivated relationships with urban farmers.
Franzman hopes to raise awareness about the problems bees are facing, due to the use of pesticides and chemicals on farms and colony collapse disorder.
“I have bees on several urban farms in the downtown area,” Franzman says. “We [Bee Public] are there to reach out to the community and let people know there is a problem and what they can do to help.”
Benefits of live bee removal
In one case, Harding charged $250 to move bees from a wall to the slow food garden for a local restaurant that specialies in fresh, local ingredients. He also taught the restaurant employees basics of beekeeping.
Harding also relocates bees from homes and elswhere to organic farms. “I like helping out the farmers, because they yield 20 to 40 percent more crops with bees on their property,” he says. “It’s really important for farmers to have bees.”
Harding says his interest in bees began when he read a magazine article on the myriad benefits of honey. (Photo courtesy of Ross Harding)
Bee removal methods
Williams says not only does live removal save the bees, but it also avoids the use of pesticides. “They’re pretty nasty, toxic chemicals.”
Caldwell says when bees are killed, and the honeycomb is left behind, it melts into a sticky mess and attracts other critters. Beekeepers use three different eco-friendly bee removal methods:
Swarm removal
Harding describes a swarm as a cluster of bees about the size of a basketball that isn’t attached to a hive. Bees swarm when they’re looking for a new home. They typically aren’t aggressive, because they aren’t defending a hive.
Caldwell says beekeepers will often catch swarms for free, since they can start a new hive with the bees.
Williams usually incorporates swarms into his own hives, but sometimes he’ll give them to another beekeeper who is trying to build a hive. To relocate a swarm of bees, he shakes them into a hive box with frames designed to attract the bees. “They’re looking for a house and all of a sudden, they’re like: ‘Whoa, free condo!’”
Swarm season can start in April, but Williams says the peak swarm time is May and he gets calls for swarm removal all summer long. By late summer, he says the swarms don’t have enough time to establish themselves in a new hive and survive the winter so he’ll usually add those bees to an existing hive.
Cut-outs
Bee specialists use the cut-out method when the bees have established themselves in a wall or tree. To remove the bees and honeycomb, the beekeeper cuts into the wall. Williams employs different ways to pinpoint where the bees are inside of the wall, including using a stethoscope to hear the bees behind the wall or using a thermal scanner to find the hot spot in the wall. Being able to locate the bees helps minimize the damage to the home.
Caldwell says prices for cut-outs range from $200 to $300, depending on the job’s complexity. The jobs usually take a day.
He recommends finding out in advance what a beekeeper’s services include, because some beekeepers can do carpentry work after cutting into your wall, but others will only take the bees.
Trap-outs
When a beekeeper wants or needs to avoid cutting into a wall or tree where bees are located, they use a trap-out. “You create a cover where the bees are entering and exiting and allow them to go to another hive,” Caldwell says. Trap-outs build a one-way bee escape, where the bees can leave their old hive, but not make it back in. Caldwell says you can’t always capture the queen with trap-outs, but it still allows you to remove the bees without using insecticides. A trap-out can take up to two months, and Caldwell says the cost ranges from $200 to $300.
