More Info - Honey Bear Bee Removal

Save the bees, save the planet.

Bees pollinate approximately 80% of the crops that we rely upon. A single honeybee colony contains 20,000-100,000+ bees, each one capable of pollinating thousands of flowers. It’s not hard to see why saving just one colony can have a tremendous effect on local pollination and the overall survival of the species.

We use a completely natural approach to safely remove the bees by using absolutely no chemicals, carefully cutting out all of the wax combs, and removing all of the bees with the queen.

Attempts to kill the bees by using pesticides almost always fail, but will result in a chemically-tainted beehive that we will no longer be able to remove. Therefore, it is best to leave the bees alone, and leave the removal work to the experts.

Recent Suffolk County regulations prohibit spraying or exterminating honeybee hives.

A colony of honey bees living in the exterior wall of an 1800’s building behind wooden clapboard siding. Catskills, NY.

Situations like these are very common, as a new swarm will look for a new home and move in to a cavity of empty space that is suitable for their needs. In the case of the above photo, it was between the two studs of an old building. Lack of insulation between the wall studs meant ample space for the bees to build their hive, and their entrance was a cozy little knot hole in the wooden siding. The lighter wax towards the bottom of the nest is the freshest, which means they have been actively growing and expanding their colony. The darker mass above is older wax that they have been using and re-using for rearing brood.

The photo below is a close-up of one of the wax combs inside a beehive. Each of the hexagonal shaped cells is a capped cell of worker bee brood (i.e. bee babies), which will soon be born and get busy taking care of the other young brood still in the larval stage. A healthy colony will typically contain anywhere from 20 to 50+ square feet of comb space used for the raising of brood, storing nectar, honey, and pollen. With just one square inch of this worker comb capable of producing 20-30 bees, and with a bee egg incubation period of just 21 days, honeybee populations are capable of growing exponentially, resulting in quick expansion throughout the beehive (or wall of a house) and casting of multiple swarms.

This is a close-up of one of the many beeswax combs full of bee larvae that can be found in a hive.

Another colony of bees we successfully removed. This time, they had built not 1, but 3 separate nests in the soffit of an old house. Removal consisted of carefully prying off the fascia board of the eave in order to get access to the beehive, and using a combination of our custom-made specialty bee rescue tools to carefully extract the bees, their brood, and all traces of their nest. Catskills, NY

This photo was taken inside a second story bedroom where we determined, through using a heat-sensing camera, that the bees had made a nest between the floor joists of an old two-story house. Using the thermal camera allows us to pinpoint the location of the nest and avoid making unnecessary exploratory holes in the walls of the house, like some of the less experienced beekeepers do. This particular colony nest spanned between the two joists over approximately 3 feet. We carefully removed several floor boards, extracted the queen, bees, brood, and honey, and left the homeowners feeling safe and happy!

This photo shows side-by-side how our thermal camera lets us see exactly where the beehive nest is. The photo on the left shows the upper corner of a basement room in a house. The photo on the right is from the thermal camera that showed exactly where the heat footprint is of the hive, preventing us from making unnecessary cuts in the sheetrock in order to figure out where the beehive is. The customer contacted us because they saw hundreds of honeybees flying in and out of a hole in their siding and they wanted the bees gone because they were worried that they might sting one of their children, but they didn’t want to harm the bees. We were able to show up the same day and effectively remove the entire colony, saving the bees, and the family!

This is a photo of yet another honeybee rescue operation we did. As is often the case, it required the removal of the wooden siding boards to gain access to the nest. This hive in particular had lots of honey stored from the previous season. Customers often ask us what happens if they just decide to spray a pesticide into their wall to kill the bees. Then we ask them what do you think would happen if you left 20 pounds of unattended honey inside your wall? Tens of thousands of dead bees and their eggs and larvae would be left to rot and attract a host of flies and other insects to come feast on the decaying mess, while the multiple pounds of honey in the wall, no longer guarded by a colony of bees, would create a never ending feast for ants and anything else that has a sweet tooth. The most practical and ethical thing to do in case you have bees in your wall, is to have a professional beekeeper remove them, where they can continue to live in an apiary and pollinate.

This honey bee rescue operation took place in Long Island, where a very kind-hearted building owner helped cut a neat hole in their building in order to allow us to remove this colony of honey bees. The efforts paid off as we were able to remove all of the baby bees/brood, nectar, and pollen that the bees have collected, as well as the queen. We have relocated the colony to a remote location where they can comfortably continue to pollinate, and the building owner has patched up their wall to prevent future re-occurrences of honeybee swarms.

This was an odd bee removal call because a giant swarm of bees decided to cluster on a random spot on a brick wall of a commercial building, about 15 feet above the ground, near some high-voltage wires. Luckily, the property owner called us as soon as they noticed them, and we were able to remove the swarm before they moved into the building.

This was another massive beehive that took over a side of a house in an uninsulated wall. Approximately 70 lbs of honey was removed, along with ~100,000 thousand bees. Lack of insulation in the wall, along with a crack in the cedar shake siding created the perfect environment for honeybees to call this house their home.

These bees chose to take up residence in the wall of a garage, where they were entering through a crack in the rotten window sill. The colony was relatively young, but given a few more weeks, they could have easily filled out that entire empty space and tripled in population. A neat cut in the exterior sheathing was the least messy way to extract the hive, and was quickly repairable.

This bee removal was interesting because once we opened up the wall, we saw that the wasps’ nest in the cavity was even bigger than the honeybee nest! Luckily, the wasps’ nest was uninhabited, but we removed it anyway, as a courtesy to prevent future colonies of wasps from moving back in. This was the inside of a garage wall, where the bees were entering through a crack in the soffit and squeezing through the joint in sheathing to get access to the ample free space between the studs. Both beehives were succesfully removed, and their entrances sealed to prevent future re-occurances.

This was a quick removal job. As always the bees outdid themselves by managing to start a beehive under the roof of a sauna, going down into the voids of the cement block wall. It took using a diamond blade demo saw to cut into the wall to expose the full nest and rescue the colony. The bees made optimal use of the available space by building combs diagonally on the ceiling plywood and had extended several of the combs almost 2 feet down into the cement block voids.

This was a massive honeybee colony that has lived in the wall of this old house since the 70s! Left untouched, the bees took over the wall and created a massive nest of more than 50,000 bees. This photo progression shows the stages of the removal, starting from using our thermal camera to pinpoint where the core of the beehive is, then into exposing the full stud bay where the brood was, and later expanding into the stud bay to the left where the bees were storing nectar and pollen. This was likely the largest and oldest honeybee colony we’ve had to remove, and we are honored to continue this hive’s legacy!

After hours of carefully jack-hammering through the concrete wall, we finally uncovered this beehive that was established just a few months ago in this commercial building in Long Island. The bees were entering through a small crack in the mortar and had already built a nest about 3 feet wide and 4 ft tall!

Approximately 20,000 bees and 5 lbs of honey were hidden behind this concrete wall!

A colony of honeybees has been living in this black locust tree for over 2 years. The tree is near a walking trail that the property owner often used. The family had to re-route their trail to avoid approaching this tree full of bees until we came and removed them! Incidentally, bees in a tree is an indicator of a tree’s deteriorating heartwood. Luckily for the homeowner, he was able to safely bring the tree down after we removed the bees to avoid dealing with a downed tree and thousands of angry bees in the next wind storm!

To us, it was clear that the tree was rotten from the inside because honeybees need a cavity of about 10-15 gallons of empty space to build a nest. If they took up residence inside this tree, that means the tree was hollow and would likely topple over during the next wind storm. For this reason, the property owner was comfortable with us making the necessary cuts in the tree to remove the beehive. After we removed all of the bees, queen and wax combs, the property owner was able to safely drop this dangerous tree. Another win-win!

This colony of honeybees set up shop in the roof of this building in Dover Plains, NY. They were entering through a thin crack between the fascia board and roof sheathing, and had built out almost 4 feet of comb between two joists.

As it turns out, whomever was in charge of insulating the roof didn’t do such a great job, as only a quarter of the roof was insulated. The rest of the space between rafters was empty, dark, and dry – a perfect scenario for a honeybee hive. These bees were gently removed from this cavity and put in a new hand-built wooden beehive where they can safely continue to thrive.

Honeybee removal in Hopewell Junction, NY. This removal job reminded us of a wisdom tooth extraction. It was a fairly old and large colony and the only way to access it was through the soffit of the second story of the house. As we neared the end of the colony, we were reaching almost 4 feet into the space between 2 floor joists where the bees had made their nest.

This beehive was formed in the empty cavity of ductwork,. The ducts were not properly installed at the interface with the siding, and bees made their way into the wall. Removal entailed carefully taking pieces of the siding off in order to gain access to the hive.

No job too big or too small! We are insured to work on commercial buildings as well as private residences.

This beehive was several years old, and developed inside a garage wall. The beehive entrance was on the back wall of the garage, up against a fence where the homeowner hasn’t looked for years. When the bees started finding their way inside the garage, the homeowner investigated further and discovered that the wall was buzzing with action! We successfully extracted the colony along with pounds of honey, preventing costly damages and ant infestations for years to come.

This hive was removed from within the roof joists of a beautiful farmhouse in the Hamptons. The bees entered through a hole in the cedar siding and built their nest up against the century-old roof sheathing. Plaster and lath was carefully removed to gain access to the hive. The cavity was later professionally sealed after the hive was extracted.