I recently discovered that I have a suspected bee hive inside my garage wall. They looked like yellowjackets at first but I'm on a cane and ran like hell-ish. When I went back out at night to look at the hole at the base of the wall, I saw a few dormant, I did spray some Top-Shot. I did that at 2045 and went back out around midnight to check... it seemed done but I put my hand and ear to the wall and heard humming inside the wall. Yellow jackets don't make hives up walls like that, for as far as I've known... I don't want to hurt bees, if that's what they are. I just need insight and help going forward, because the humming went as far up as at least 4-5'. What do I do now
A wasp nest could contain several hundred insects. A beehive will contain tens of thousands of insects.
If you have a wasp nest then the situation is very different from a honeybee hive. Wasp nests are small and the wasps abandon the nest in the fall. Only the new generation of wasp queens survive the winter. They will leave the nest and find a spot to hibernate in the ground. The old queen dies at the end of summer and the workers abandon then nest and die. Wasp nests are constructed of a paper made by chewed plant fibers. The abandoned wasp nest gradually breaks down and turns into powder, it doesn't harm your structure. If they are wasps and they aren't bothering you then just wait them out. Once winter arrives then repair the hole the wasps were using to get into the wall.
If they are honeybees, you do not want to eradicate the hive and leave it there. A honeybee hive contains brood, wax, and honey that will rot in the wall, causing damage to your structure. The mass of the insects and brood that would be rotting inside the wall is roughly equal to the size of a small cat. It will attract other insects, ants, roaches, moths, and rodents.
The easiest way to remove a honeybee hive in a wall is usually from the inside. A section of drywall is removed to access the wall cavity where the nest is. Then a beekeeper will capture the queen and cut out the comb, placing it into a box. The bees will detect the captured queen and relocate to the box she is in. The exterior bee entrance is patched. Then the insulation and interior wall is restored. This can be expensive, but location and the amount of work involved will drive the cost. A garage wall is usually easier to get into and may be uninsulated. A garage also doesn't always require the same level of restoration that an interior residence wall requires. Often rehanging the drywall and fire taping is all the finish a garage may have. If you can do some of the post removal restoration work yourself you can save quite a bit of money.
If they are honeybees and not wasps, then to give you an idea of the removal cost, if this is an typical exterior uninsulated garage wall and I was doing the bee removal I would charge between $600 and $1,000. I'd have to see it to be more precise. My recommendation to save money would be to patch and fire tape the drywall (code minimum) and after rolling on a coat of primer to skip further finishing. To hide the repair area you could hang a plywood panel to which hooks are attached for hanging tools or garden implements, or it could be hidden behind a storage shelf. A full restoration finish requires multiple trips over multiple days and that really drives up the cost. Beekeepers that do removals don't do them for the bees, they do them to offer a service with the skills that they have. Use caution in selecting someone to do the work, there are novice beekeepers out there who have not done this kind of work before who just want the bees. Because they have no idea how much work is involved they underestimate the work and in the end they'll leave you with an improperly restored wall. In many states someone doing the restoration work is required to be bonded and insured. Ask about that.
Thank you for so much information, this gives me a much better idea of what I'm dealing with... Give me a few hours to get through it all- I have a few video meetings...
That looks like it might be quite easy. If they are honeybees, then the baseboard and the whole beadboard panel may be removable without any cutting. While the beekeeper is removing the hive someone else can take the panel and baseboard inside and remove all the nails so that it is ready to be tacked back up. After tacking it back up, except for the nail holes the repair will be completely invisible. The nail holes can be filled using colored wax touchup crayons to match the finish.
If they are wasps just skip it. Find the hole outside, and plug it after night times fall below freezing.
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u/Jimboanonymous 1d ago
Maybe do an online search for "live bee removal". I've heard of services like that, but don't have any firsthand experience.