Where have they come from?

Bees live in all sorts of places. We believe that the majority of bees in the UK live in beekeepers hives, but a good number also live in trees or buildings and are known as ‘wild’ or ‘feral’ colonies. When bees outgrow the space that they are in, they swarm. This means that the colony splits – roughly in half. Half of the colony will remain where they are and produces a new queen, but the existing queen leaves the nest with the other half of the colony and goes out in search of a new home. When this happens, the group can be seen as a ‘cluster’ often hanging from the branch of a tree, on a wall, a car or just about anywhere. This cluster will send out scout bees who look for potential new homes and eventually the ‘hive mind’ will reach a consensus and move into a new place. Naturally this would be a hollow in a tree but more often now it will be in a chimney or a roof space.

For a number of reasons, many beekeepers do their best to prevent their bees from swarming. With the best efforts, swarming is the bees natural tendency and it is rare that it can be avoided completely. Wild bees will usually swarm at least once a year and so, for every colony living in a chimney, a new one will be produced each spring – all of which have the potential to move into another chimney or roof!

But won’t they just move on?

Usually not. When bees move into a new home, they will usually start to build honeycomb within hours and the queen often starts to lay eggs in the honeycomb within a few days. Once eggs have been laid, the bees have invested too much of their resources to simply leave the nest. When they are preparing to swarm, they gorge themselves with honey in order to set up a new nest.

I’ve been told that they will die soon anyway – why do I need them removed?

There is a common, albeit misguided, belief that all bees will die quite soon if not attended to by a Beekeeper. Whilst there are a number of threats to bees living on their own, strong colonies usually can adapt and survive threats to their health and so do not simply die without a beekeeper to look after them. If this were the case, bees would have been extinct long before beekeepers came along. In the event that the bees in your property die from either starvation or poor health, their honeycomb will always be re-colonised by a new swarm the following spring. The only way to avoid this is to remove the honeycomb and bee-proof the area.

Can the bees be ‘smoked out’?

Driving bees out with smoke has mixed results. From a safety perspective, having a source of ignition to produce smoke in close proximity to the fabric of a building is not a good idea. In terms of actual effectiveness – simply driving bees out of a space can often cause alternative problems. If the bees are forced to leave with smoke (or other repellant) they can simply create a swarm and move into an alternative space – sometimes on the same house! We have to offer a reliable service and so we opt for a method that we know works.

Why remove them – can’t they just be left alone?

Bees in buildings bring risks. The main problems are:

1. Honey – we have moved up to about 150lbs of honey out of one chimney from one colony of bees. Whilst the bees are in a building, they always have honey stored in their honeycomb. The risk posed by honey is if it leaks. Bees do their best to maintain their honeycomb but a number of factors (usually extreme heat or ill-health) can cause honeycomb structure to fail and honey to leak. Honey tends to progress through the fabric of a building quite slowly and doesn’t ever ‘dry up’. It is a bit like a water leak with the ability to ruin ceilings, stud walls, carpets, floorboards, lime mortar and many other building materials. If left unresolved it can attract vermin such as ants, rats or mice. It is important to note that there is no guarantee that honey will ever leak. We have worked on buildings where bees have been present for decades without losing any honey. We’ve worked on others where honey has leaked within a few months of the bees’ arrival.
2. Stings – Different honeybee colonies have different temperaments and, often, bees within the colony also have different temperaments (largely due to the fact that they aren’t all identical genetically. Whilst they all have the same mother – the queen – it is often the case to have worker bees with different paternal genetics within the hive). Some colonies are very docile whilst others can be quite defensive. Their behaviour can also change over time due to a number of factors including the current state of their hive, the state of their queen, the weather, the air pressure, how much pollen and nectar are currently available and external influences such as noise or vibration. We rarely work with bees that have caused a real problem by stinging humans but it can be a problem, and it is certainly a risk. This is a often a risk that is considered unacceptable by those who have a duty of care such as residential or holiday landlords, shop/cafe or pub owners, schools/colleges, employers with workers in close proximity to the bees etc, as well as homeowners in areas with high pedestrian traffic nearby.
3. Nuisance to neighbours – if you have bees in your property then their natural instinct is to produce a swarm each year. This swarm will need somewhere to live and this will often be a neighbour’s chimney or roof. Even if you are happy to host bees, your neighbours may not be. It can be said that bees in a chimney present no more risk to neighbours than unmanaged bees living in a nearby tree. This may be correct but we have seen neighbourly relations suffer as a result of unpopular bees being left in-situ.
4. Problems with building maintenance. Most contractors such as builders, roofers, electricians etc will not work near to a bee colony, and rightly so. The health and safety at work act outlines the requirement for places of work to be safe and having a bee colony next to a contractor who is unfamiliar with bees and who has no appropriate Personal Protective Equipment and no risk assessment to cover the situation simply cannot be expected to work under such conditions. We often carry out emergency removals in winter because bees have been left living in a building until some urgent work needs to be undertaken, such as a repair to a leaking roof, and cannot be undertaken with the bees in-situ.

In short, bees can be left in buildings but the risks of doing so are high and we would certainly say that the risks are unacceptably high and so they should not be left.

What about poisoning?

We obviously wouldn’t condone killing colonies of bees but, ethics aside, poisoning simply doesn’t address the main problem – the honey! Whilst bees are in a building, they store honey in their honeycomb and do their best to maintain the honeycomb. If the bees are no longer there to maintain the honeycomb, it is far more likely to fail and leak honey and will do so much sooner than if the bees had been left. N.B Whilst we don’t condone using poisons to kill honeybee colonies, it still goes on. If you feel a requirement to poison honeybees, please be aware that it is much more complicated than poisoning wasps and should not be undertaken with any publicly available products. The chemicals and method of application required are professional level and should only be undertaken by a contractor with the correct license, training and insurance to undertake the work.

Does my insurance cover this?

Not always but quite often, yes. Not all insurance companies will cover bee removal but many of them take the approach that preventing a problem is better than resolving it and so would prefer for the bees to be removed than to have to pay for building damage after a honey leak. It’s always worth a phone call to them to ask the question. This can apply to homeowner, landlord and commercial insurance cover.