Pest Gallery

Honey Bees: Apis mellifera Linnaeus

The honey bee can become a serious pest when it establishes a nest in or on a structure. The most serious problems result when a swarm of wild bees locates a small opening or openings in an exterior wall, chimney, or behind some faulty flashing of a home, and then nests in a wall void or some other interior area.

Honey bees may be various shades of yellow, black, brown, or orange; with the head, antennae, legs and a portion of the abdomen being dark. Worker bees are usually about 2/3-inch long.
Honey bee nests are made of many wax cells which the workers construct. As with yellow jackets and nests of other social wasps, these masses of cells are called combs. If honey bees become well established within the wall voids of a house, large amounts of wax and honey may collect within the wall. As long as the bees are active, the workers keep the air moving inside the best by fanning with their wings so the temperature remains below the melting point of the wax. If bees are killed, this form of air conditioning ceases to function. In warm weather, or if the interior of the house is kept warm, the wax within the wall void may become soft enough to melt. The honey then seeps out of the storage cells, creating a mess.

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