Why did the bees pick my house?

Bees are interested in any type of void that will offer protection. These voids include, but are not limited to; chimneys, wall voids, attics, crawl space, barbeques, irrigation valve box, trees, and bushes.

What are the bees doing?

Typically a new bee hive consists of four to six thousand bees. They can swarm to their chosen location and move into a structure in as little as 15 minutes. After they have moved in, about 10-15 bees will be traveling to and from this location throughout the day. These bees are called worker bees. It is their job to forage for food for the rest of the hive. Upon their return to the hive, they are filled with nectar and are carrying pollen, which are their building materials to make honeycomb and grow their hive.

The bees will start working the same day that they move into their new home. A new bee hive can start to build anywhere from half a pound to a pound of honeycomb per day. This is why it is important to get any bee infestations taken care of as soon as possible, to limit the amount of honeycomb produced so that structural removals and repairs will not be necessary.

After the bees have been there for seven days or longer, they will have build enough honeycomb to create other problems for the structure. Some of these problems include; honey melting which causes noticeable stains and structural damages, new bee hives returning to the area because they can smell the honey and assume it is a place to live, nests near by.

Will the bee’s just leave on there own if I don’t do anything about it?

No, if left alone the bees will just continue working, building more and more and laying more and more eggs. Eventually, your bee hive can grow to be hundreds of pounds and up to sixty thousand bees. Soon the hive will get so big than the original Queen will no be able to communicate with all of the bees in her hive any more. In this case, the bees will lay a new Queen. This new Queen will take a portion of the bees with her and leave the hive. A lot swarming activity can be seen when the split is taking place. Typically they will build their new hive close to where they originally came from.

Can I just exterminate the bees and seal the hole up?

No. There are a couple of reasons why this would not work. First, if honeycomb is present in your structure and no bees to maintain it after the extermination it will begin to melt causing noticeable stains and structural damages. Second, if the honeycomb is left there, even if it is sealed up, other bees will be able to smell it and will come looking for the source of the smell. They will either dig through the seal or they will establish their new hive somewhere along the structure. Third, eventually wax moths will begin to appear eating wax along with rodents and ants coming to eat honey and establish nests.

Bee Facts

• A honeybee can fly approximately 15 miles per hour.
• A honeybee flaps its wings about 11,000 times per minute creating that “BUZZ” sound.
• A typical beehive makes more than 400lbs of honeycomb per year.
• Honeybees will usually travel between 3-5 miles from their hive.
• A worker bee visits about 50-100 flowers during each trip to collect pollen and nectar.
• Bees do not create honey, they are actually improving nectar. The honey we eat is nectar that bees have repeatedly regurgitated and dehydrated.
• Bees have 5 eyes and 4 wings.
• Although Utah has the title of “The Beehive State”, the top honey producing states include California, Florida, and South Dakota.
• The Queens only job is to lay eggs up to 2000 per day,/ for 2 to 5 years. The worker bees control how many eggs she lays with the amount of food they feed her.
• In 1956, African honeybees were brought to Brazil and cross bred with local honeybees to create hybrid bees to increase honey production. Unfortunately, these new hybrids turned out very aggressive. Several Africanized queens escaped from Brazil, and Africanized Bees have gradually spread northward through South America, Central America, Eastern Mexico, and now the United States.
• A killer bee will sting in 3 seconds, whereas, it takes a honeybee as long as 30 seconds to sting.
• Africanized bees chase their enemies for longer distances, and tend to gang up, stinging in large numbers. When a person is stung many times that could be dangerous. But a single sting from on Africanized bee is no more dangerous than any other bee sting.