I'm lucky, they'll make a pitstop on your car or porch or mailbox, and you will call me. At least, that's how I hope it goes.
Why are they swarming?
If you believe horror movies, honeybees swarm only for the purpose of attacking nubile young cheerleaders. If you believe neighborhood associations, honeybees swarm only to lower property values. If you believe science text books, honeybees swarm only to fill in three to five paragraphs that would otherwise be wasted on a "how long does ice take to melt?" experiment. Actually, Honeybees swarm for one reason: to produce a new colony. That swarm of bees has just left its old home. They have too much dignity to sit outside the starbucks with a cardboard sign saying "Will buzz for honey", so they are looking for a home. With the honeybee in such decline due to pesticides and disease, I want those bees to have a home. I want those bees to have a home in one of my hives. Left to their own devices, that swarm will eventually find a home. It won't be as nice as one of my hives. It might be in the wall of your house, or your attic, or a mailbox, or a tire. If that's the case I won't remove those bees for free, and neither will most other beekeepers. So call when the swarm is still hanging from the branch, not when they've already marched into your chimney!
Do:Contact a beekeeper - preferrably me. Jason Nelson - 425-7364942, 425-739-6872, or mail me via this post link
Don't:Spray, Poke, Throw, Disturb, Mangle, Spindle, Punch or Fold that honeybee swarm. Unless you are nubile young cheerleader on the set of a horror movie, it's unlikely the bees have noticed or care about you. If you are a nubile young cheerleader you can feel free to mail me, swarm or not. I am not young, I am not nubile, unless nubile means "slightly overweight and balding." For this reason I'm not afraid of swarms. If you aren't me, don't mess with them. If you wouldn't do it to a toddler under while under video surveilance, think more than once about doing it to that honeybee swarm.
Don't:Call us for wasps, hornets, or mosquitos. You cannot get honey from a mosquito at all. We do not remove yellow jackets. I'd rather remove thirty thousand honeybees than a nest of yellow jackets. Honeybees are peaceful by nature. Wasps are the warriors of the insect clan and they are rarely in a pleasant mood.
Don't:Expect us to remove bees from the wall of your house or shed or tire or hotwater heater or truck tailgate or bathtub or light fixture (yes, really) for free. If you have a hive in your electrical service box, leave it alone. You may get stung or electrocuted or both and while it would be quite amusing to read your obituary, odds are people would blame the bees rather than you. Tip: Plugging in the toaster each morning does not qualify you to work with high voltage or stinging insects.
Don't: Mail me telling me how cell phones are killing the bees. The only way I've ever seen a cell phone kill a bee is when I set the phone down on it. Unless you are telling me a truckload of cell phones turned over, crushing a row of hives, I find it unlikely that cell phones are responsible for many bee deaths.
Don't: Expect us to recover a swarm 100 feet up a pine tree. Those bees, they're God's bees now. If he wants them he can come and get them. I have neither wings nor parachute but I do have a morbid fear of death.
We all want this story to have a happy ending, one that involves an adoption to a loving home. All it takes is a phone call. You'd do it for a box of kittens, right? And you can't even get anything edible from a kitten without violating a lot of animal cruelty laws and ruining a blender. We all want to save the whales, and whales don't pollinate, produce wax or honey. I say feed the kittens to the whales and let the whales fend for themselves: Save the bees!
Thanks
Jason Nelson
Learn more about honeybees, beekeeping and swarms.
Postscript: I already have to re-iterate - do not spray anything on that swarm. Not RAID. Not gasoline. Not shaving cream (yes, woodinville shingled house owner, I'm talking to you - do you know why you never hear people saying "Just spray some shaving cream on that bee and it will go away" ? because shaving cream is a lousy way to deal with flying insects, moron), not AXE cologne. AXE smells nasty when it's on people - can you honestly blame the bees for objecting to your precious little snowflake spraying it on them? If he'd sprayed it on me I'd have been really unhappy too. The difference is that I have no stinger on my rear end, something I really regret from time to time. One day DNA grafting will be real. It may take a while and I might be an old man, but at that point you and your AXE spraying spawn had better stay off my lawn.
Post Post script: If it's bumble bees (aka they are in a bird house and you do not see honeycomb), I will remove them if you want, but not for free. The same goes for established colonies living in your shed, your basement, your house. I did make one exception for a colony living in a rubbermade container, because I could just pick up the box and take it home. Listen, I want to save the bees as much as anyone but if you want me to crawl on my belly under your trailer and remove the nest one comb at a time while the bees are still on it, I am not going to do that for free. If it is so easy, why don't you do it yourself? No? Ok, then we'll make the brash assumption that removing a established colony of stinging insects is hard work for which I will expect to be paid. If you know someone who will do it for free, call them instead. Swarms: Free. Wasps/BumbleBees/Established Colonies in a brick wall with your Aunt Ida's picture on the inside that you do not want disturbed: not free.
Post Post Post Script: If you have a swarm and you want me to hit them with a rake, I have a simple rule. I will hit you with the rake once for every time you want me to hit them with a rake. Don't want to be hit with a rake? Neither do they. You should be ashamed of yourself, west seattle real estate agent. I understand you are trying to sell a house but you need to understand that hitting a swarm with a rake is only a really good recipe for putting 10,000 bees into flight. Odds are they are not going to move on, they are just going to go higher up in the tree, making it harder for someone who wants to take them home to actually get them.
Keywords that annoy the hell out of people: bees, bee, honeybees, beekeeping, swarm, swarms, radioactive mutant cannibals (ok, if you are looking for those this ad isn't really going to help. I suggest that if you are looking for radioactive mutant cannibals, you check into sewers near toxic waste disposals or wait for the democratic national congress - if the primary season has proven anything, it's that "The party of Civility" is the one at Kappa Beta Phi, not a political party. Personally I think I'll stick with massive mobs of stinging insects - they are more rational and friendly.]]>