Bee Control
What are the improper methods of African bee control in the Pest Control Industry?
Many licensed pest control companies and licensed or unlicensed "bee removal" companies will try to sell you on improper methods for bee prevention, wasp prevention or hornet prevention instead of performing a proper bee removal, wasp removal, hornet removal or honeycomb removal. For example, if you have continually had problems with bee infestations, wasp or hornet infestations, they will try to sell you bee, hornet or wasp traps for your house or spread them around on your property for a fee, promising to examine the traps periodically. Our argument against this practice is based on simple facts, if the original infestation is not taken care of properly, and the pheromones and honeycomb damage are not removed properly, then all traps will do is attract other African bees, wasps and hornets to your property. Do not be fooled into believing that these practices work. It is a scam and just another way to make money off of you. Unless the original infestation is resolved using proper methods, you will always have future infestations, traps will only accelerate the probability of another infestation occurring quickly.
Another ineffective practice is the use of sticky boards or pest strips at the entrance of an established colony to contain or trap any residual foraging bees that return to the colony site after an extermination. Bees are not flies that can be attracted to glue strips that smell like food, and bees constantly forage for pollen, nectar and water as far as three miles out from the colony site. Honeybees must return to their home site to deliver the forage materials. If an African bee colony is just sprayed from the outside, the foraging bees that may individually make as many as 50 foraging flights a day still will have to come back and will try to rejoin the main colony to deliver the materials they have foraged. They are not interested in glue strips or sticky boards that have artificial pheromones embedded in the glue. If there is a peak honey flow occurring, more than half the colony may be out foraging when extermination is performed.
If you were fortunate enough not to have the bees from the colony driven into your home from outside spraying, then you still have to contend with the mass of foraging bees that will return and that will be very angry. Sticky boards and pest strips at the entrance are very poor and ineffective ways to handle this problem. This attests to the fact that licensed pest control companies or licensed and unlicensed bee removal companies are not willing to get the job done correctly because of the time a proper bee removal usually takes. Sticky boards will only catch some of the returning bees by contact, not attraction. Pest strips left inside the colony entrance are very toxic, and if left at the site for more than four months are a violation of the product label and the law. If you employ companies that advertise for low cost bee removals or bee control, they will try to shorten the time it takes to provide a proper bee extermination or bee control by using short cuts like these that usually don't work or are totally ineffective leaving you in danger or with the real probability of being infested again in the near future.
What are the proper methods of bee control and how do you prevent African bees from damaging your home and ruining your property value?
Africanized bees (now called African bees) damage a structure when they first land. Pest control companies are unaware of this fact, and "bee removal" companies that DO NOT have extensive beekeeping experience have no expertise about this either. All species of honeybees "mark" their pheromone scent by EVERY BEE IN THE ENTIRE BEE COLONY urinating pheromone scent on the outside surface of the hollow cavity surrounding the entrance to the African bee colony. Moreover, African bees also smear and urinate their pheromone scent throughout the entire interior surface of that cavity.
This pheromone scenting is done so the African bees from that beehive can find their way back each time they forage out from their beehive finding flowers to collect honey and water to maintain their honeycomb. Similarly, the only way these African honeybees locate flowers and water sources, is strictly by smell and by marking each forage site with a pheromone scent called the Nasanov pheromone. African bees can smell this scent from as far as 3 miles away from their bee colony site. Each worker bee makes many, many trips out from its colony location and back daily bringing back these foraging materials to make honey that will quickly cause severe structural damage to your home or property.
Also, the Nasanov pheromone scent that the African worker bees urinate and smear liberally on the exterior and interior surfaces of the structural cavity, unless treated properly will cause future bee infestations to occur. A passing swarm will be irresistibly attracted by this bee pheromone scent which the African bees can smell from as far as 3 miles away and will preferentially try to infest a former bee colony site or a structural cavity nearby on your building or home.
Removing and neutralizing the Nasanov pheromone scent is extremely important in any bee control process. If this is not done, future bee infestations will occur. New swarms will be drawn to the site again and again. Bee pheromones once applied to the exterior and interior of a structural cavity will not go away by itself. It is not just a matter of scrubbing out the cavity with soap and water or bleach, the scent must be neutralized.