DENVER (KDVR) – The sights and sounds of spring are in the air across Colorado, and that includes the buzz of the bees.
Honey bees are beginning their annual spring activity, establishing new colonies across the state. Unfortunately, those hive locations don’t always coincide with the interests held by those humans nearby.
“They’re really docile right now,” Gregg McMahan explained, “but it still makes people’s hearts race.”
McMahan is a volunteer Swarm Dispatcher for the Colorado Swarm Hotline.
According to him, people who find hives on their property will often take matters into their own hands, sometimes killing the bees.
That’s bad news for flowers, plants, and the ecosystem as a whole, with honey bee populations in decline worldwide.
McMahan said that if the bees aren’t causing any harm, the best situation is always to leave them be. However, he said that bees that are creating hives on or near homes can be a major issue.
“Any cavity that they can put 50 pounds of honey in, that’s where they’re going to move into,” he said. “Once it jumps into the house that’s a structural removal, and it can get expensive to do that, it’s not an easy job to get bees out.”
Homeowners who find themselves impacted by this migration can call the Swarm Hotline (1-844-Spy-Bees) to get a trained beekeeper dispatched to relocate the bees from their property.
Source : https://kdvr.com/news/local/honeybee-swarm-season-colorado-beekeeper/
