The Bees Knees

A newly established colony almost always starts out gentle. As the colony grows in size and the season progresses, the bees become more protective of their stores. Likewise, a growing colony means many more bees for you to deal with. But if the colony is handled with care, this is seldom a problem. We are gentle as we remove your colony.

When there is little nectar and pollen available for foraging, the bees can become very possessive and defensive-especially in the autumn.

Knowing what to do if you’re stung:
Calmly remove the stinger you can use your fingernail to scrape it off your skin.
Apply a cold compress and take an antihistamine tablet (Such as Benadryl). Antihistamine creams also are available. Using this technique reduces the swelling, itching, and discomfort. Then call us we will remove them and give them a new home so they can safely contribute to our planet. We need them, and they are struggling.

A honeybee colony consists of one queen, numerous male drones, and thousands of female workers. While it is often assumed that the queen is the “boss”, that is not so. The thousands of workers are really in charge of the hive, and also determine the queen’s destiny. At any time the female workers can decide to replace the queen bee, due to a lack of egg production or poor health. The female workers take a young egg and feed it exorbitant amounts of royal jelly and a new queen will hatch. Now, we all know that two queens can’t live under one roof. The old queen will either be forced to leave or the new queen will kill her. If one of them decides to leave the hive she may take a large group of loyal followers with her. This is called a swarm and you may see the large group of bees clinging to a tree or side of a building.

Before they swarm, honeybees may be seen investigating houses and trees scouting for a new location. This is when they may find a tiny hole or crack in your building and decide it would make a great new home!

The honeybee’s life expectancy during the busy summer work months is only six to eight weeks, while during the winter dormant season it can be as much as 16 to 20 weeks.

Honeybees are the only insect that make food people normally eat. Honeybees live year round but are more dormant or quite during winter. When not in a bee box, honeybees are commonly observed on flowers. Less commonly honeybees can be observed as a giant swarm migrating in a circular motion to a new home. Occasionally the swarm will land and rest on a tree or shrub. From houses & buildings, honeybees may occasionally be observed as a handful of bees buzzing around a wall, eave, house chimney, or other structural opening. In hot or dry seasons, honeybees may show up at water sources.

A new honeybee swarm may consist of 4,000 to 9,000 bees, while an established beehive generally has 10,000 to 50,000 bees with 40 to 100 or more lbs.of honey (9 to 45kg). Respectively, there is no such thing as a small beehive! Unlike wasps & other stinging insects, bees can loose their stingers. If a person or animal is stung by a bee the ridged stinger of the bee often gets stuck in the skin, dislodging from the bee and causing the bee to die shortly after. The average life span of a single honeybee is around 3 or 4 months, living slightly longer during winter.

For may centuries honey was considered by the ancients to have healing powers and medicinal virtues; only more recently did science prove this. Honey can be kept indefinitely. Honey should not at all be consumed by human infants. Honeybees are one of the only bee species that live year round as a hive. Bumblebees, carpenter bees, yellowjackets, wasps and hornets all flee the nest by late fall season to safely survive winter. Apart from this common European honeybee, other honeybee species exist from Europe, Africa, and Asia and are more native to those environments.
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