Dark honey stains, shown here on an exterior wall, can be difficult to remove. The drywall ceiling had to be replaced. Photo by Southeast Bee Removal

If you have a potential infestation of bees or wasps, an important step is insect identification. One homeowner in Baton Rouge shared a concern about flying insects.

“I may have a bee or wasp problem at my house and am not sure how to determine it. Let me give you some background and perhaps you can point me in the right direction,” she said.

She shared that there was a hole in her chimney and added, “There is a grid wire over that hole now that needs to be fixed, and I think bee(s) or wasp(s) may be getting into the chimney, or the wall between the chimney and outside. When I am working at home, sometimes I can hear a buzzing reverberating off the metal chimney, but my husband does not see anything when he looks up into the chimney. We do not hear the buzzing 24/7 but do hear it often. We noticed it a few weeks ago. We have not seen swarms, or even several bees/wasps go into the hole. However, we have seen a bee go in and out. Never more than one. Although we have not monitored the hole long enough to know if there is bee/wasp traffic.

“We need to have the hole in the chimney fixed but do not want to block up a hive or something if it has been built in the wall. My question is, do I need to contact a bee specialist to see if we do have a bee/wasp problem in the wall or should an exterminator be able to tell us that?”

My suggestion would be to start with the exterminator because he can treat wasps. If it is honeybees, the exterminator will not treat them because of the liability of honey leaking and causing stains in your home. The honey will also ferment and attract roaches and ants.

If he says there are honeybees instead of wasps, then a local beekeeping club would be able to help with removal. The AgCenter also has resource to help locate bee removal services at this link: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/environment/ins...

Many times, the removal entails opening a wall and removing the queen, brood comb and honeycomb. The beekeepers will use a gentle “bee vac” to gather up the worker bees.

Some bee removal people will use an infrared device used in the HVAC trade to identify the bees’ location by their heat signature. This device helps reduce the damage to walls.

Closure of the opening is usually the responsibility of the homeowner. Consider contacting your insurance company to discuss the possibility of making a damage.

If you want to contact Beehive Buzz, please email your questions and pictures to khawkins@agcenter.lsu.edu or call 337-463-7006. Also, you can join the “beemail” email list by sending your request to the email address above.

Different regions for locating bee removal services. Image by LSU AgCenter

This work has been supported, in part, by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Renewable Resources Extension Act Award, Accession Number 1011417.