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Hundreds of bee removals from trees/houses/roofs/sheds/water meters/etc have been done over the years. Hive access is sometimes difficult and sometimes easy. Every removal situation is different and always an adventure. If you have bees that need removing give us a chance to relocate them to a good home in an area hobby beekeeper’s apiary. Not all types of removals can be done by NaplesBees and there is no charge, but donations are always appreciated. Click here to contact NaplesBees for a quick response to your request. Below is a chronological listing of various past bee removals done over the years. See 2024 year bee removals here |
1/26/2018 – This hive removal was from a shed in back of a house on Mahogany Ridge Drive in Naples. It was located under the exterior wall between two studs and the comb went the full height of the studs. They were very gentle bees.
 Initial removal of one slat to see where the bees are under the outside wall. |
 View of the complete hive after outside paneling removed. The hive comb extended from the floor to the roof. |
 Estimate bee number was probably around 20,000 bees. |
 View after all the comb removed and most of the bees vacuumed into the brood box.. |
 We did capture the queen as you can see from these pictures when we inspected the brood box in our apiary a few days later. |
 The queen was a beauty, but she was very shy and wanting to stay buried from the light. |
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3/2/2018 – An outside hole in the wall of a house had bees coming and going. Removing a piece of siding and then a 2X10 board revealed the bees had been there for some time because the comb and bees extended for considerable distance along the wall joists. We had to revisit the site a few days later to remove the remaining bees and were successful in finally capturing the queen which was in the center of a ball of bees that had gone under the house in the crawl space. All in all this was one of the toughest removals we have done because of the work required to access all the comb and finally capture the queen. Total removal time on site was over 7 hours.
 The paneling on the side of the house had multiple holes, but the bees were using one specific hole as their entrance. Until a piece of the paneling was removed it was impossible to determine the extent of the hive. |
 Here is a partial view of the combs before removal. The depth of each area allowed the bees to build 2 or 3 layers of comb in each section. |
 After removal of most of the comb. The hive comb extended along the whole side of the house. |
 Captured queen being surrounded by bees after one minute  Captured queen being surrounded by bees after 3 minutes. |
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3/15/2018 – I observed a swarm of bees in a cypress tree which I was able to reach with my tallest ladder. The bees were gently scooped up and placed in a nuc that had some pulled comb and was baited with queen pheromone. The remaining bees on the branch ended up flying over and marching right in.
 Swarm on a cypress tree branch. |
 Nuc box on a ladder up near the swarm location. |
 Bees marching in to the nuc and fanning at the entrance. |
 Swarm put in the apiary and happily feeding on the sugar syrup. |
| The nuc above was running out of room for the bees and the hive was transplanted to a deep brood box…. | |
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6/26/2018 – Bees were removed from a water meter box and relocated to our apiary
 A picture after most of the comb was removed to a hive box and only a couple combs remained. |
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7/3/2018 – Bees took over a small birdhouse located in East Naples. The whole birdhouse was placed inside a hive box and then put in our apiary. After a few days, when the bees got acclimated to their new location, we removed the comb from the bird house and mounted in langstroth frames. The bees will then have plenty of room to build new comb and expand their hive. We did spot a beautiful queen roaming the brood comb in their new home!! Maybe we could repurpose the bird house into a swarm trap box??
 The whole birdhouse was placed in a hive box with the bees to be eventually removed and their comb mounted in brood box frames. |
 It is always rewarding to get such a nice thank you card for doing a live removal. |
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10/14/2018 – We noticed a large hive building in a tree in the back of our apiary area. Probably a swarm from one of our hives. It was removed with the bees and comb placed in a deep hive box and placed in our apiary.
 Good size hive in tree behind our apiary. |
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11/14/2018 – A swarm took up residence on a tree near a guest house. The hive was up about 30 feet and there for about 3 weeks. When the tree was cut, most of the hive comb was damaged, but what could be salvaged was mounted in frames. Among the mix of bees and broken comb on the ground, the queen was found and captured.
 Hive on branch about 30 feet up in a tree. |
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