Massive bee colony removed from Piedmont home

When a Piedmont family first noticed the numerous bees in and around their newly purchased home a year or two ago, they figured they would need to find the source and move the hive eventually. What they didn’t know was just how big the colony was: Apiarist Dan Somers of the Bee Free Team opened up the chimney and discovered approximately 85,000 bees along with hundreds of pounds of honeycomb in the hollow space.

Somers says this is definitely one of the largest colonies he’s worked on and told the homeowners that the hive had probably been there for as long as seven years. “Bees will look for any structure that resembles a hollowed out tree,” he told the Exedra. “The bees are a mild annoyance, but it’s the honeycomb that is the real problem. If you don’t clean that out, the bees will keep coming back.”

Somers said homeowners can prevent this from happening in their own homes by making sure to patch any holes and cracks. He noted that smoking them out (a technique beekeepers use to calm bees) and using pesticides don’t work. According to the Beekeeper’s Guild of San Mateo, using pesticides may kill bees but “the left-behind comb attracts insects and rats, and the honey ferments and oozes through walls.”  These Piedmont bees will be relocated to an apiary in Half Moon Bay and the honey will be kept to feed them.