09/07/2021
The Cost of Doing Free Bee Removals
When you watch the videos of people that do a lot of bee removals, they are primarily where winter doesn't happen but for a week or two. These removals are done by people that get paid to do them, but also the number of removals that you see happening for them is consistent to downright overwhelming.
If a beekeeper loses their bees in those areas, new bees are just a phone call away, but in areas like I live in, when people lose their bees it's generally 3-6 months before you can replace them! Because of the differences in the areas, you find people in PA are DESPERATE for bees (that's in caps for sarcasm, not yelling) and they will take bees out of houses for free--but what's the real cost of free? This summer I've heard so many stories about bee removals, I think it's time to hit people with a dose of reality in what the Free Removals are really costing us and the bees.
One person that didn't want to pay, got someone in for free that bit off more than they could chew. They got the hive open...and they left! Really, they just saw what it was really like, packed up and said they weren't able to do it--with the wall wide open!
Another had someone show up that didn't know even how to locate the bees, so they ended up with not 1, but 2 holes in their wall. Fortunately for both, the owners of the house were just about to get new siding.
Though these are problems that do happen, and there's a longer list than I'm going to write here, because the real problem that happens with people that are trying to find someone to remove the bees, is that they finally give up and trying to find someone, and then try to kill them instead!
When any price is compared to Free, it looks expensive, and the reality is that in this area, charging what those that have year round bee problems charge--well, you wouldn't get too many jobs when the people find out there are people that do it for free, but most people that do it for free won't do it unless it's easy to get to.
As soon as a ladder, or roof is mentioned, they aren't interested!
I had a job like this last week, but with bees getting in the house, and pets getting stung, the hive got sprayed--and just after that they someone gave them my name.
The problem here is the comb is no good, and when I got in to the hive most of the bees were dead. I did find the queen, but she was dead by morning. As I was pulling comb out that had poison on it, I was just tossing the comb to the ground and not putting it in frames and boxes, so suddenly bees from all over were there to rob it out. I vacuumed them all up and put the comb away, but also by morning most of those bees were dead in the Vac box!
What you have to realize here though, is those bees would have gone back to their colonies with that poison, and it's not just 1 hive people kill when they kill a hive, because once a hive is unguarded, it was only a matter of time before other bees would find it and rob it out, or more bees would move in and perish!
In the climates with winter, beekeepers really need to do more to be known for removals so people aren't giving up and poisoning the hives. Beekeepers need to do more to let people know that they aren't just killing the bees they have a problem with, when they spray the bees to kill them, but colonies that are nearby are also going to fall victim to their actions, and if you aren't willing to do it for free on a ladder or space that's hard to get to, don't do it for free when it's easy! Free bee removals are killing off a lot more bees than people realize, and it's really time people wake up to the problems they're creating!
