Honey Bee Swarm Removal & Capture Service
Honey Bee Swarm Removal & Capture Service
One of the coolest natural phenomenon’s is when a honey bee colony naturally divides itself to make a new colony. During this process about half of the bees will gorge themselves on honey and all at once take flight to find a new home. During this process the honey bee swarm will find a nice place to gather away from the original hive and wait for scouts to find a new home. This is a horrifying sight for many people but sheer joy for beekeepers. For us, a swarm means more bees! We get calls for our honey bee swarm removal service a few times a year and would love to get more. We’ve retrieved swarms from all over the Chicagoland area.
Early Spring: Minimal!!
In the Spring we are recouping from Winter losses. We lose a lot of colonies over the Winter and need to replenish our Apiary. If we have the available equipment we will remove your swarm for free or just for beer money.
Swarm removal: $175
If we don’t need new hives (we always want them though), we’ll come out and get the swarm from your location. After a swarm removal there are always a few stragglers. These should disperse in a few days.
Adopt a hive: $250
This is the same as the swarm removal but we will provide you with “after” pictures of your swarm in our bee yard. We’ll also give you the first 3lbs of honey your swarm produces. In some cases the colonies don’t make it. In this case we’ll give you a pound of our local honey (Lombard and Downers Grove). Either way – you’ve helped the local honey bees and get something delicious and healthy in return!
Other swarm removal costs:
I’m no handyman. If the bees get into a structure and it needs to be taken apart to get the bees out, we start to get into foggy territory. I’m happy to remove the bees once they’ve been exposed but I do not have any ability to fix any damage done by the bees. If something needs to be pulled apart we’re happy to work with a handyman to do it and will provide protective gear for him/her.
In most cases we’ll have extra gloves and veils if you’re feeling brave and want to get in close for a look.