Is my Honey Bee Hive a Candidate for Live Removal?

Call Help! I have honey bees living in my house walls. Do you do honey bee removal? Little Giant Beekeepers receives this question a lot, and the answer is usually, YES! Until it happens to you, most of our clients do not realize that bees can take up residence right in their home’s exterior. The good news is if you don’t want to share your home with bees, we can often perform a live hive removal.

In general, honey bees move into homes through an existing crevice. An opening around a faucet, crack in the mortar, or a small gap between the siding and brick of a house are very convenient entrances for bees to then take up residency in a house. Some of honey bee’s favorite places to build a colony are in the outside walls, corners of a roof (the eave), and in the chimney.

For your safety, a live honey bee hive removal should be handled by a professional beekeeper only. Little Giant Beekeepers are trained beekeepers and carpenters. We can perform a live removal from most house structures, depending on the material and location. We can perform a live hive removal when the materials the bees reside are behind wood, composite siding, shingles, and more. Because we are not brick masons, it is not always possible for us to remove live honey bees in a brick or stucco structure.

We safely remove live hives by first opening the area where the hive is hidden. We then use a “bees vac” to gently remove the bees. Once we gather all the bees we work on cleaning up the hive and the area. This is an important step to keep the bees from returning. We thoroughly clean the area with soap and water then bleach. Next, we hard pack the area with fiberglass insulation. We close the opening with matching materials and leave it exactly as it looked before the hive was removed. Finally, we caulk all crevices and cracks in the area. The bees leave alive and your house looks exactly as it looked before the bees moved in!

A favorite place for bees to colonize is a valve or water meter box. Do you see bees flying in and out of a small hole in a water meter box or valve? If you see a lot of activity it is a distinct possibility you have a hive living inside the box. Little Giant Beekeepers can do live removals by gently removing the bees and relocating them to one of our beekeepers’ local apiaries.

Depending on the location of an exposed hive, Little Giant Beekeepers can take the whole hive and relocate it live to a local apiary. Though an exposed hive seems like an easy live honey bee hive removal situation, it often isn’t due to height and location of the exposed hive. They are often high up in a tree and pose their own set of risks.

If you have aggressive bees, you could have Africanized bees. It is not a good idea, nor is it safe to try to save these bees. Sometimes it is not safe for a beekeeper to attempt a live hive removal for safety reasons, including extremely tall or hazardous locations.

Do you have honey bees that need to be removed? How do you know if a live removal is possible? Call Little Giant Beekeepers. Our hive removal specialists can tell you over the phone if a live hive removal is possible. Plus, we will give you a free quote. Please give Little Giant Beekeepers a call at 972-980-0923. We service all North Texas, Dallas, and Fort Worth areas.