Michigan Honey Bee Removal - Swarm & Hive Removal - Washtenaw County & More
No Kill Honey Bee Relocation
We humanely remove honey bees in Washtenaw County, Michigan as well as other counties. The above photo shows some of our beehives that are made from wild honey bee swarms and colonies that we removed right here in southeast Michigan.
Do you have a swarm of honey bees on your property? - call or text 734-377-8720
Call 8am to 9pm 7 days a week
We'll remove the honey bee swarm for free! By swarm we mean something that looks like the below images. If they are already in your house or building and the colony has established a nest, that is not free due to the huge amount of effort to remove. Additional details below.
Or this:
If you are located in south east Michigan (Washtenaw, Wayne (some parts), Monroe, Lenawee, Livingston counties) and are within 60 miles of us we are happy to come and get the honey bee swarm are no cost to you. We get calls from cities including, but not limited to Ann Arbor, Canton, Ypsilanti, Plymouth, Novi, Northville, Livonia, Belleville, Saline and other nearby cities. We are humane honey bee removers and never spray or harm the bees in anyway. Bees are one of the most important living creatures on the planet and we want to help preserve them.
When honey bees swarm they are looking for a new home and if you leave the cluster alone eventually they will leave and find a new home, but that new home could be in your home or business, so it’s best to have them humanly removed.
Contact Us
If you have a swarm of bees that looks like the below image, please email joekolb85@gmail.com or call or text 734-377-8720 (texting is preferred as we don’t do remove honey bee swarms full time) . If it is a honey bee swarm we will usually get back to you very quickly. When you email or text please send photos of the bee colony or swarm as we will always ask for these to make sure they are honey bees as so we know where the swarm cluster is located so we know what equipment to bring. We will respond as soon as possible, usually within minutes. Please don't try to remove the swarm yourself or use any chemicals to spray them prior to contacting us. If you spray the swarm and we see any sign of them being sprayed when we arrive, we will leave without removing the honey bees.
This is what a swarm of honey bees looks like and is a photo of a swarm we removed last year.
Do you have a honey bee colony in a tree, house, barn or other building?
WE DO NOT REMOVE THESE, but we can refer you to other beekeepers that will. We work with beekeepers that remove honey bee colonies from their nesting locations in trees, walls, roofing, chimneys, and more. Some of the beekeepers we work with will do this, but if they have to take siding off your house or cut holes in the wall they will not make the repairs. They just remove the honey bees and you will be responsible for the rest. The beekeepers we work with will usually charge for removal projects because they can be very involving and it takes quite a bit of time to do these kinds of removals. It’s important if you do have bees in your house that you don’t spray them and have them removed. If the honey combs remain behind they can damage your house if the bees aren’t in there to maintain the hive temperature and the wax melts. Also if you spray them, any remaining honey and brood will attract a whole host of other insects and creatures and maybe even another honey bee swarm. If there are any signs of chemically sprayed honey bees, the beekeepers we work with will not do the cut out. If you have a honey bee colony in a tree, barn, shed, house, or similar structure you can email us with specifics on where the hive is located, close up photos of the bees if at all possible (we only rescue honey bees, but often times we get calls for yellow jackets, bumble bees, wasps and similar insects), photos of the location where the hive is and your phone number and city where the wild honey bee colony is located. Use joekolb85@gmail.com. Please don't call us for non swarm honey bee colony rescue as we have to coordinate with the other local beekeepers we work with.
Do we sell local Michigan honey from the honey bees we rescue?
Yes we do. You can email joekolb85@gmail.com or text 734-726-0269 if you are interested in purchasing honey from us.
Make Sure the Bees You See Are Honey Bees
WE DO NOT REMOVE ANY OTHER TYPES OF BEES OTHER THAN HONEY BEES. Meaning we do not remove bumble bee nests, hornets, wasps, miner bees, mason bees, yellow jackets, carpenter bees, and many other native species of bees. We only remove honey bees.
There are a lot of types of bees out there and we wish we could save them all, but the only kinds of bees we remove are honey bees. This is what honey bees look like (note their coloration can vary). These are honey bees on a honey comb. The photo was taken from one of the wild bee swarms that we removed last year.
Anything that is nesting in or on the ground you can assume it is not honey bees and we do not remove. Honey bees don't nest or swarm on the ground in almost all circumstances.
Pics of honey bees - we DO remove:
Here is a photo of a honey bee on a goldenrod flower.
Some honey bees are lighter, more yellow looking, others are darker. As long as they are honey bees, we don't care! Dark or light they are great bees:)
Pics of Bald Faced Hornet Nest - We do not remove
This is a photo of a bald faced hornet nest. These are not honey bees and we do not remove them for this reason.
Photo of Yellow Jackets - We Do Not Remove
Photo of Carpenter Bee - We Do Not Remove
Photo of Mason Bee - We Do Not Remove
How We Remove Honey Bee Swarms in Michigan
When we come to humanely remove a swarm, we don't bring sprays to kill them, rather we bring them a new home in the form of a small beehive that already has some honey combs ready to go for them. We usually take a white sheet with us and lay that on the ground under where the swarm is hanging, usually in a tree or bush. We then put the hive directly under the swarm we are trying to remove. We take the cover off their new home and give the branch a firm shake, this will dislodge the bees and cause them to fall to the ground. This won't hurt them as they will buzz their wings when this happens and gently fall to the ground. Each swarm of honey bees has a queen bee in it. If the queen falls to the ground with the rest of the bees and falls into the new beehive, the rest of the honey bees will sense her and follow her into the beehive. If the queen didn't make it into the hive, she may have flown up to the branch again, in which case we will wait for the honey bees to settle on the branch again and we will start the process over again. Once the queen is safely in the hive, most of the bees will follow her within a few minutes, with some stragglers taking a little longer. When they are all safely in their new home we will close off the entrance and take them to the car for the ride to their new home.
Why Save Honey Bees Rather Than Have a Pest Control Company Spray Them?
Honey bees and bee species may be the most important living organism on our planet. Without our little pollinator friends, countless plant species would die out and we wouldn't have countless fruits and vegetables that are part of our every day lives. Animals up and down the food chain would be greatly effected. Save the honey bees and don't have them killed!
Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Bee Removal? How Expensive?
Most home owners insurance companies do not cover the cost of removing bees if they are in your house. If they are hanging in a swarm we are happy to remove them for free, but most beekeepers have to charge for removing honey bees from homes and other buildings. Since damage by bees is damage over time, rather than sudden loss, insurance companies don't cover the cost to the best of our knowledge, but you might try contacting your insurance company.
Why Do We Remove Bees for Free?
We remove honey bee swarms for free because we use the honey bees in our apiary to produce honey, pollen and other bee products. We also want to save the swarms from being exterminated. If you call an exterminator they will charge you money to come out and get rid of the bees, destroying the lives of many thousands of important pollinators. If you call us we’ll get rid of the bees for you, but the bees will continue to live on in a safe place away from any pesticides and outside of peoples homes and buildings, in their own beehives.
Why Isn’t Removing Honey Bees from House Walls Free?
Removing honey bees from inside your house walls, ceilings, under the siding, attic, etc. takes a lot of time and requires a lot of equipment and experience to do successfully. Beekeepers are not able to spend several hours removing the bee nest from the house walls and afford to do it for free. While the beekeepers do get to keep the bees from the removal process, the honey bees themselves do not provide enough value to make it worth it for the beekeeper to remove already established honey bee colonies for free. As we discussed above, we do remove honey bee swarms for free, but that is a much less involved process as the bees are on the exterior of buildings, usually hanging from a tree branch. Honey bee swarms are hanging their waiting until the bee scouts find a new home in the area, which could be inside the walls of your house, but they haven’t chosen the home yet if they are still hanging in a swarm.