Is it a swarm or a nest?
A swarm is a dense mass of bees clustered on the outside of something. You can see the bees themselves, packed together on a limb or a ledge, and they aren't streaming in and out of a gap in the house.
We call a cluster accessible when we can reach it from a ladder. A ball hanging off a shrub or the side of a shed at a workable height is what this page covers. If the bees have already moved inside a structure, that's a different removal, and we'll work out which one you have when you call.
How we capture it
We set the ladder where it stands safely below the cluster and collect the bees with a specialty honey bee vacuum. No spraying, and the colony leaves alive.
The captured bees go into a hive box with frames, which gives the swarm a proper home, and we take them to a managed apiary. A ladder, the vacuum and the hive box are the whole kit, which is why this costs far less than pulling a colony out of a wall.
What it costs
A hanging swarm capture runs $75 to $150. A ball we can reach with the ladder set on flat, open ground comes in near $75. One that's awkward to get to, with a tricky spot for the ladder or branches and fencing in the way, sits at the high end. Retrieval difficulty is the only thing that moves the number, so there are no extras padded in.
Tell us on the phone where the cluster is hanging, how high it is and what's around it, and we'll quote a typical range for it then. The final figure gets set once we're standing under the bees.
When to call
In West Palm Beach's long hot season, a cluster near a door, a walkway or a play area is not something to leave or knock down yourself. Keep people and pets back from it, then call us with how high it is and what it's hanging from.
