Live bee comb removal, often known as a cut-out, is where you are cutting the honeycomb and the bees out of that void space.

Cut-outs usually require working at height equipment because bees often like to go high. This equipment would be a scaffold or a cherry picker. You also often need a lot of building equipment because bees often colonise in walls, roof and chimneys which you will need to take apart. Tools to cut the honeycomb and the bees out of the wall or void space will also be required.

Finally, you need an artificial hive to then move the bees into to rehome. You need frames and elastic bands which hold the wild honeycomb into the frames so they sit inside the artificial hive.

You will then need building experience to put that building back together again and complete reinstatement work.

When you remove bees there will be a number of bees flying around and a residue of bees in that area. So that opening needs to be closed or covered fairly quickly. This is important to prevent rain from getting or other bees that may be looking for a new home. Once you have cut away the comb and removed the bees there is still a scent of honey and comb in the area making it very attractive for other bees to recolonise that area.

During one cut-out we carried out, we removed around 300 kilograms of comb from a soffit board. We cut away the wooden soffit board and we took that honey and brood comb out and put it into an artificial hive.

What seems like couple of hundred bees flying in and out of the hole turned out to be a great deal more. You can have anywhere from 5000 bees to 100000 bees in a colony. Bees make between 25 to 50 kilograms of honey in a year. So if you had a problem for 10 years, there could be a significant issue within a building.

If you’ve just bought a building or moved into a building, you don’t know the history of that void space. What might look like a problem that’s just started may have been there for a long period of time. If you moved in during the winter, honeybees are not active in the winter. They’re alive in the winter, but they only become visible in the spring and summer when its warm enough to leave the comb. So it may be almost like there’s no problem and then it gets very, very busy. The issue may have been there for ten years or longer and you just haven’t noticed it in that location.