I got a call one September from a woman in Bulli who was standing in her kitchen with the back door shut, watching something the size of a football hanging off a branch of her lemon tree. It was moving and it was loud. She had a four-year-old, a dog, and a husband on his way home from Bunnings with a can of something.
I asked her to send a photo before he got back.
Honey bees. A swarm, which is a colony that has split in half and left with the old queen, and what she was looking at was a temporary camp while scout bees went looking for a permanent address. They were, at that moment, about as harmless as bees get — full of honey, nothing to defend, no nest, no brood. She was more danger to them than the reverse.
I told her to keep the kids and the dog inside, leave it alone, and ring a local beekeeper. It was gone by Tuesday lunchtime. Somebody collected it Sunday afternoon for nothing and drove off very pleased with himself.
Bees or wasps, from ten metres
It's not a subtle difference once you know what you're looking at, and it decides which trade you need.
Honey bees are furry and goldish-brown, and they fly with an unhurried wobble. A swarm looks like a solid clump of them on a branch, a fence rail or a gutter, with a haze of others in the air around it. The sound is a steady drone.
European wasps are hairless, sharply banded bright yellow and black, and they fly straight and fast — like a bee that's late for something. You almost never see them clumped in the open. Their nest is hidden: in a wall cavity, a roof void, behind a retaining wall, or very often in a hole in the ground, and what you'll notice is a hard stream of traffic in and out of one spot. That's the one to take seriously, particularly if it's near a doorway or a play area, and it's covered properly in wasp nest removal in the Illawarra.
Paper wasps are the open grey umbrella nest under the eave or in a shrub, with the wasps sitting on the outside of it in plain view. They're the least aggressive of the three and still worth not brushing against.
If it's hanging in the open, exposed, and looks like a single mass of insects, it's almost certainly bees. If it's a stream of traffic disappearing into a hole, think wasps.
What we do, and what we don't
We treat wasps. That's a service we run and we're set up for it, gear and all — wasp and bee removal is on the list because people ring about both, and the honest half of it is that we deal with the wasps directly and point you the right way on the bees.
Honey bees we'd much rather see relocated by a beekeeper than killed. That's not sentiment, or not only sentiment. It's also that killing them is usually the more expensive path, for a reason most people don't see coming.
The wall cavity problem
A swarm on a branch is a two-day thing. A swarm that gets into a wall cavity, a roof void or under a floor is a building problem, and it changes fast — within a few weeks there's comb, brood and honey in there.
Here's what goes wrong. Somebody sprays them, or gets someone to. The bees die. Nobody removes the comb, because reaching it means opening the wall. What's left is several kilos of honey with nothing keeping it cool and nothing fanning it, and in a Wollongong summer that honey ferments, softens, and runs. It comes through the plasterboard as a brown stain, it gets into insulation, and it will keep seeping for months. Then it draws everything else in — ants, cockroaches, small hive beetle, wasps robbing it out.
I've seen the second version of that job. It's a cut-out, a clean-out and a repair, and it costs multiples of what dealing with it properly would have.
So if bees are actually inside a structure, the answer is a beekeeper or a bee removal specialist who will cut the comb out and take it, not a can. And once it's out, the entry has to be sealed, because the smell of old comb is exactly what the next swarm's scouts are looking for.
Ringing a beekeeper
Swarm collection is one of the last genuinely free-and-cheerful services left. A swarm in the open, reachable from a short ladder, is something plenty of keepers will come and take because a free colony is worth having.
Two things make it much more likely you'll get someone. Ring early — an exposed swarm might move on within a day, so a Saturday morning call beats a Monday one. And be accurate about access: how high, what it's sitting on, and whether a ute can get near it. A swarm three metres up a paperbark is a different proposition to one on a fence post, and a bee already inside a wall is a different job again that most swarm collectors won't take.
Worth knowing that beekeeping in NSW is a registered activity and hives are tracked, partly because of varroa mite, which reached Australia through the Port of Newcastle and is now managed rather than eradicated. The federal Department of Agriculture keeps the current position on honey bees and biosecurity. Practical upshot for a homeowner: feral colonies in walls and trees are under a lot more pressure than they used to be, and the beekeepers collecting swarms are working with more rules than they were five years ago. Be patient with them.
Shutting the door before September
Swarming season here starts around September and runs through spring, and prevention is genuinely just carpentry.
Scouts are looking for a dry, dark cavity of the right size with a small entrance. Your roof void qualifies beautifully. So go around the outside and look at the same list of gaps that lets everything else in: the fascia line where it's dropped away, broken or lifted tiles over a valley, unscreened gable vents, the gap where a pipe or a cable goes through the wall, and weep holes that have been opened up over the years. Screen them or close them.
That's the same walk-around that keeps rodents out of an older place, and the detail is in rodent-proofing an older Illawarra home. One job, several problems solved.
The other one worth checking: if a colony has been in the wall before and was killed rather than removed, assume the comb is still there and assume you'll get another swarm. That's the repeat call I get more than any other.
When to stop reading and act
Bees in the open, nobody allergic in the house, kids and pets can be kept inside: leave it, ring a beekeeper, expect it to sort itself out.
Bees going in and out of a hole in your wall or eave for more than a couple of days: that's a colony moving in, and the window where it's easy closes quickly.
Wasps anywhere near a door, a path, a sandpit or the letterbox, or a hole in the lawn with traffic in and out: don't wait, and don't go near it with a broom. European wasps sting repeatedly and a disturbed ground nest can send a lot of them at you at once.
Anyone in the house with a known sting allergy: treat any of the above as urgent regardless of what it is.
If you're not sure which you've got, send a photo when you ring us. Ten seconds of looking usually settles it, and it might save you a can of something and a wall.
Need a hand with this in your home? Get a free quote or call 0430 007 651.