What To Do If You Have A Bee Colony In An Unwanted Place

If you, or someone you know has a bee colony in an unwanted place, what can you do about it?

1.    Bees are sedate and will not cause you any issues, as long as you do not disturb them. You can leave them to live happily.

2.    You can physically remove them, by lifting the whole colony from their chosen location and rehoming them in a suitable environment. Honeybees will need transferring to a managed hive but bumble bees will need removing to a location with similar factors as the one they have previously chosen. E.g. a bee that has taken up residence in the insulation of a roof space, will need placing up high in a box with the same insulation that it was living in. A nest that was in a compost heap will need placing in a similar compost heap. Each species of bumble bee requires different conditions to live and not paying careful attention to this will possibly result in the premature death of the colony.

The first and very logical reaction is to contact your local bee keeping group. These groups are very useful and may well have links to people who may remove a colony for you, but they will probably not give advice in relation to bumble bees. Most beekeepers do not have the skill set or the insurance to undertake full removals. 

A lot of people don’t want to contact pest controllers as they worry about them simply suggesting killing the colony. And at one time that was often the go to method, beekeepers would even suggest it if they had viewed a colony and decided that they would be too difficult to remove. Thankfully we are seeing a major change in this approach, and any pest controller willing to euthanise a colony would be doing himself and his business a huge disservice. The potential for reputational damage is huge, social media has allowed for this.

The difficulty with removing Honey Bees is that their colonies are often very large with huge amounts of comb and honey.

The entrance that the bees are using will be very small, often a crack or hole no more then 10mm and removing the comb through this entrance is impossible.  Finding the colony within the building can be done due to the size of the colony and heat that is generated allowing sensitive thermal cameras to quickly pinpoint the location of them. This means that extensive building work will be needed in order to gain suitable access, once access has been gained every piece of comb must be removed, as failure to remove this will increase the chance of another feral colony taking up residence in exactly the same place. The bees will need to be collected in a safe manner and the whole colony will be moved more then 4 mile away from the old site. If you do not move them at least this far, the bees will follow their old flight path back to the original site and you will have thousands returning.

Honeybees will often place their colony in very hard to reach places, chimney pots, wall cavities and other high and hard to reach areas and access via scaffolding or access platforms will be needed. It is important that the scaffolders, builders or roofers are capable and experienced of working with bees. No matter how experienced they are in their respective trade, if they are not, it is easy to panic and become disorientated, which creates a dangerous environment for everyone around them.

Bumble bees can have their own problems associated with their removal.

Numerous species of bumble bees means that they have such a varied preference for nesting sites that they can turn up anywhere. From your attic, to your air brick, your compost heap or the hollow of a tree, they have even been known to take over old mouse burrows, some of the nests are relatively easy to find with the whole colony being close to the entrance site that the bees are using. However, some of the bumble bee species will travel some distance from their landing site to where they chose to build their residence. This means that bees entering under your gutter or through your air brick may be several meters away from their entrance, the small size of their colony, which is probably no bigger than a large grapefruit means that thermal cameras are often ineffective at finding them, and physically tracking the bees is the only real option. 

Unlike honeybees, bumble bee colonies die off at the end of the year and a whole new colony is started again the following spring, you will often hear people say that you should leave them alone, they will be gone by the end of June and they will not come back the next year. This is true in some cases. But with so many species this is often not the case, some bumble bees are still going strong well into the back end of autumn. It is our experience that bumble bees will often use the same nest site or a nest site very close year after year if they are not removed, I can only put this down to the virgin queens returning to the same nest site they were born in. I personally know of numerous sites that have had bumble bees for 10+ years and I have every confidence that the bees will continue to use this site for many years to come. I also know of sites where one colony of bumblebees has turned into several over the next few years. 

If you do not remove them, what happens?

As we have already mentioned, honeybees build very large colonies and have extensive honey stores, as a general rule of thumb an active colony will build 1ft of comb every year and its not uncommon to see 6ft plus colonies when they are removed if the bees have been in this location for a very long time. The bees themselves will always try to regulate the temperature of the honeycomb and their stores, however on hot days homeowners have been greeted with honey running down the walls of their home or workplace. If a chemical treatment has been done, the chances of this happening increase as the bees are no longer available to regulate the temperature of the hive. As honeybees emerge from the hive they will defecate a small amount of a sticky yellow substance, home owners cars often get hundreds or thousands of these marks on their car depending upon how close the car is to the flight path or the hive entrance.

If a bumblebee nest is left in situ there is a chance that you may get a secondary pest infestation, once the workers and the queen have left the nest, small insects like the red rust beetle will feed upon it, often causing home owners great distress as they infest the living areas of bedrooms or nearby rooms. Finding the nest now becomes harder with no active bees to show you where they are. And of course, if you do not find the old nest then the treatment of the problem becomes even more problematic. And of course, you have an attached cost to the property owner.
If you have found someone who will try a chemical treatment, and they have been successful in killing the bees, you will probably need to have the honeycomb removed, if you do not then a future swarm may decide to move into this exact same place, I mean why would they not, a ready-made home with honey already present ready to give your new colony the best start. It therefore makes sense that if you’re going to have to remove the honey comb then why not remove the live bees with them.

If a chemical treatment has been attempted and was successful and you decide not to remove the honeycomb then here are two reasons that you have to block the entrance. The first is that local colonies will raid the disused colony for any unattended honey. They will take the poison that has been used and transfer it back to their own colony, causing the death of bees within this neighbouring colony. Court cases have been heard and found against the person using these chemicals in this way, with substantial fines being handed out….

If you do have a colony of honeybees and you are going to decide to move them, it is important to try and remove them as early in the summer as possible. Early removal will allow the bees the remainder of the summer to build up their stores so that they stand the best chance of survival through the cold winter months.

Once removed there is often a lot of work which is needed to be done to give the bees the best chance of survival in their new home. The bees will often need feeding on a thick syrup solution which is prepared with cane sugar and hot water, often needing a daily visit, for many weeks to fill their feeder. If the queen is viable then the job of keeping them alive becomes easier, however if she is not, which is not uncommon in these types of removal, a surrogate queen will need to be either bought or reared and introduced. If the time of year makes this impossible then they can be merged with a stronger colony to ensure the survival of the bees which have been removed.

In short, if you have a bee colony on your property do not panic, due to the location and species of bee it may be very viable to leave them exactly where they are and allow them to live their lifecycle in peace and quiet.

If they need removing then there are specialist companies who can do this for you, remember to get them involved as early as possible, as leaving them may mean that the removal company may refuse to do them until early spring the following year when the bees have the best chance of survival. Look for a firm with a proven track record of this type of work, who understand the complexities of the work that it entails and can safely gain access to any hard to reach areas and complete any major brick work or roof work that maybe needed.

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