Bee Pest Control Geelong

While honey bees are an introduced species in Australia, these bees play a necessary role in agriculture as pollinators and producers of honey. However, unless you’re a beekeeper, you would not want swarms of them buzzing near you or your family. Bees can swarm in residential areas or workplaces and bee removal can be a challenge, so the problem is best left to the experts at Essential Pest Control in Geelong.

Stay Clear, Bee Swarms are Dangerous

Bee swarms have killed people and can also be fatal for anyone allergic to the sting, especially if they have an anaphylactic response. European honey bees will aggressively defend their hive and if a bee stings it dies because the action tears out its lower abdomen. The sting continues to pump out venom if left in the victim, so don’t squeeze it, as this pushes out more venom, but scrape the sting  out with a fingernail.

Contact Essential Pest Solutions without delay if you have bees swarming near your home, yard or workplace where they may be a danger to your family, customers or staff. Don’t go near the swarm as it can be dangerous.

Recognising European Honey Bees

Australia has three introduced European honey bee subspecies:

• Italian honey bees (Apis mellifera, ligustica)
• Caucasian honey bees (Apis mellifera, caucasia)
• Carniolan honey bees (Apis mellifera, carnica).

The colour of a honey bee varies, with most of them having a muted yellow and brown abdomen, The thorax, head and abdomen is covered in a dense growth of hair. There is also hair growth around the eyes and legs.

Honey bees are very social and their large hives are dominated by one queen bee that spends her life laying eggs and using her pheromones to control the hive. She is much larger than the drones or worker males. The worker bees build the hive and gather the pollen and nectar to feed the larvae.

If you have a bee pest problem, call the bee removal experts at Essential Pest Control today to collect swarms.

Honey Bee Habitat

Honey bees were brought to Australia by European settlers and have established successful feral honey bee hives right across the southern states, and Geelong is no exception. Beekeepers and the honey industry rely on these introduced bees which also play a vital role as crop and wildflower pollinators.

Why do honey bees swarm?

Bees swarm to create new colonies with a new queen usually in late spring and early summer during the day when flowers are blooming.

Bees swarm when:

• A colony becomes too large, and congested, or there are too many bees for the queen’s pheromones to control the hive. In this case, the worker bees signal a swarm.
• The queen’s fertility may be on the wane due to her age causing her to produce fewer eggs and bees which causes the workers to choose a new queen for the sake of the colony’s survival.
• A lack of ventilation, food or water, a problem with the queen, a disturbance by humans or animals, disease, or changes in climate  are among the reasons bees will leave a hive and swarm to a new location.

Other Bee Species in Australia

Australia has more than 1,700 species of native bees with two species of social bees, the rest living solitary lives. None are aggressive, and most cannot actually use their sting on humans because these bees are too small. Larger native bees can sting if handled or squashed, though the sting is not as painful as a paper wasp or bull ant sting or bite. Native bees are important to the natural Australian flora, although they have to compete with honey bees and therefore their numbers may be in decline.

Native Bees

People can mistake native bees, wasps and some flies for introduced honey bees as they can look similar. Native stingless bees (Tetragonula and Austroplebia) are only less than 5mm long, are very dark brown to black, and they’re the only native bee species to build large social hives. The other solitary native wasps and bees may look like honey bees, but they aren’t aggressive and have no barbed sting. Some flies mimic honey bees but they don’t have two pairs of wings and they don’t sting.

Digger Bees

Digger bees or ground bee queens are harmless. They dig little holes in the ground to nest and leave after the nesting season is over. While they might make your lawn look a bit untidy, they don’t defend their nest and are unlikely to sting, so they pose little to no threat to people. Males lack a sting and so they are harmless. These bees aerate the soil and can be good for the garden, but how do you get rid of digger bees naturally? Just water the ground and they will go.

But don’t mistake them for yellow jackets, which do pack a sting! So it’s best to call Essential Pest Control bee experts so we can identify the kind of bee that has decided to nest on your property.

If a Honey Bee Swarm Settles Close By or On Your Property

First, call Essential Pest Solutions and stay away from the swarm until it is professionally removed. While waiting for us to arrive, keep children and pets indoors until the flying bees have settled.

Bees can land anywhere, on a tree branch, on your roof, or clustered on the side of your house in a large swarm or small. If you need to go outside once the bees have settled, be sure to wear shoes to protect your feet in case some bees are on the ground.

NEVER hose, try to smoke, throw stones or do anything you think might make the bees move off because this will only make them defend their queen and the swarm will attack. Doing anything to disturb the bees will also make it more difficult for us to safely remove the swarm.

Essential Pest Solutions for Bee Treatment, Control and Removal

If you have a bee problem and you’re searching for affordable bee control services in Geelong or “bee hive removal near me”, call us. At Essential Pest Solutions, we are experts in local bee control and bee hive removal.

We offer bee inspection, management, bee nest removal, and local bee control. For bee control services at an affordable cost, contact us at Essential Pest Solutions in Geelong either by phone at 0438 422 580 or by email at info@essentialpestsolutions.com.au