Are you struggling with managing a bee problem at your home? If you are swatting at bees every time you go outside or dashing to your car to avoid harassment from perturbed insects, it is time to take action. Most people choose to use insecticides (e.g., sprays, poisoned food, or other options), hoping the bugs will gradually die off. However, appropriately handling bee removal means extracting the entire hive.
As a homeowner, it is likely that you are not equipped with the right tools or knowledge to handle this task properly. That is why contacting the professionals for help is essential. Hive removal is the most effective way to make sure that your bee problems stay away for the long term.
Here is why it is important to remove the entire hive.
It’s the Only Way to Fix the Problem
Bees use their hives for reproduction, storing energy, and providing safety. If you remove a couple of errant bees, you will have little impact on their population. Most likely, the only thing that will happen is that you will agitate them, making you more likely to be stung.
In order to make sure that the bees are gone and stay gone, you must remove the entire hive. This provides them with no place to live, and as long as you address the means by which they found a foothold in your house in the first place, they will need to migrate somewhere else quickly in order to continue to survive.
Leftover Hives Can Spoil
Suppose that your pest control strategy works: you use an insecticide, and the bees take it back to their hive (or you hit the hive directly through a crack), where the rest of the bees also perish. Your problem may not be solved.
Beehives are full of honey, which is carefully managed by the bees at all times. When the bees are no longer there to tend to their hive, it can spoil. Spoiled hives can become smelly, and more importantly, they can cause significant damage to a home because they are moist, so they leave large, wet, rotting areas.
You Might Attract More Bees
Did you manage to get the bees to evacuate their hive? Congratulations! You may have a few months to enjoy your hard work before the problem starts again. Even if the old bees do not return, a new cohort soon will. Old beehives will continue to attract bee colonies unless they are completely removed, so always eliminate the entire structure and not just the insects.
Hives Can Spread
Did you know that bees do not stay in the same hive for their entire lives? Each year, the queen will leave the hive with half of the colony’s bees in tow. She will find a new place to make a hive, and the remaining bees will choose a new queen and remain at the old location. It is not uncommon for homeowners to find that if they leave a beehive unattended, it soon propagates into two or three more around the house, worsening the problem.
Hives Are Heavy
One of the biggest risks of hives that many homeowners fail to consider is that they can be quite heavy. Honey is dense, and the bees themselves add more weight than you may imagine. In fact, studies show that bee hives can often weigh as much as 73 pounds, with some weighing even more.
Dozens of pounds of beehive can be dangerous to be around, and not just because it might fall on you (and bring thousands of angry bees with it). Heavy hives also place strain on any portion of the home where they are connected. If the hive is located inside a wall, this may not necessarily be a pressing concern (instead, worry more about moisture damage).
However, hives with at least one attached area that creates vertical pressure can be a serious problem. Typically, hives attached to soffits, fascia, gutters, and roof edges are the most problematic, as the weight pulling down on these features can cause them to sag or come off completely.
Contact the Pros to Remove the Whole Hive
Do bees bother you every time you go outside? Can you see a hive but are not sure what to do about it? If so, make sure you address the problem at its source: the hive. To avoid the dangers of climbing ladders, being stung by bees, or failing to remove the hive fully and damaging your home, be sure to work with knowledgeable professionals.
The team at Spartan Animal & Pest Control can remove your beehive so you can get back to enjoying your property sting-free. Contact us to schedule a visit.
