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The first instinct of most people when they discover a honey bee
infestation is to get rid of the bees with pesticides. We often get calls from customers that have tried repeatedly to kill
an infestation with chemicals and by the third of fourth attempt, they finally realize that spraying chemicals just doesn't
seem to work. Even if the bees go away for a couple days or even weeks, the problem seems to recur again and again. In addition,
spraying chemicals in a cavity that the bees are building in can create a bigger problem since it usually just forces the
bees further into the cavity, or into another cavity. Now you have honeycomb being built in 2 places on your property.
The first problem with trying to get rid of honey
bees that have built a bee hive inside your house with over -the-counter OR professional pesticides is that the chemicals cannot  penetrate the wax that the queen puts over the baby cells. This means even if you kill most of the bees, there is a good
chance when the larvae hatch they can resume building in that cavity or another on the premises. Since a queen can lay up
to 2,000 eggs a day, just a few days of brood surviving can re-emerge into a serious infestation. In addition, as we've
seen many times, the chemicals often cannot get past the honeycomb to kill bees that have moved further back into the
cavity with the queen. Very often they simply move to another part of the cavity and continue building. In the unlikely event
that you do manage to kill all the bees, you've created another problem- nothing is maintaining the honeycomb.
After the colony is gone, we MUST REMOVE the nest. If the nest is
NOT REMOVED, the wax combs, normally cooled by the bees flapping their wings, will melt and allow honey to drip down through
the walls or the roof. Honey stain can often not be removed and the viscous honey rots walls
and sheetrock so walls may need to be replaced. As well, the freed honey attracts robber bees,
wasps and other swarms, in addition to becoming a buffet for a number of creatures- Roaches, Rats, Raccoons, Possums, maggots
and anything else that can feed on the honey. The comb wax will attract wax moths that may persist for several years. The
Small Hive Beetle larvae tunnels through combs of honey, feeding and defecating, causing discoloration and fermentation
of the honey. The dead bees will attract
carpet beetles (not the ones that sing "Let it Be") and
worse, the dead bees will decay and smell very badly.
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