Bees in Your Roof, Wall or Chimney? What Johannesburg Homeowners Should Actually Do

There is a particular message we receive at Bee Kulture all the time:

“I can see bees going into a little hole in my wall. How do I get them out?”

Usually there is a photograph attached.

From the outside, it can look insignificant. A few bees arrive, disappear into an air brick or gap beneath the roof, and another few leave.

What is happening behind that opening can be completely different.

If bees are repeatedly flying into and out of the same opening over a period of time, particularly with steady traffic during the warmer parts of the day, there is a reasonable possibility that you are looking at the entrance to an established colony rather than a few lost bees.

The most important thing I would tell a homeowner in that situation is simple:

Do not seal the hole while the colony is still inside.

Why do bees choose roofs and walls?

From a bee's perspective, many buildings contain excellent nesting sites.

A honeybee colony is looking for shelter.

A wall cavity, ceiling void, chimney, roof space or hollow structure can provide protection from rain, wind and disturbance.

Unfortunately, the qualities that make the cavity attractive to bees also make the colony more difficult for us to reach.

This is why a gap that looks tiny from outside can conceal something substantial.

I have been involved in removals where the visible entrance gave very little indication of the scale of the colony behind it.

Once access was created, the situation made much more sense.

What looked from outside like “bees in a hole” was actually an established living colony.

How do I know whether the bees have moved in?

Watch their behaviour from a safe distance.

A temporary swarm is often very obvious. You might see a large ball or cluster of bees hanging from a tree, fence, branch or other exposed object.

An established colony often presents differently.

You tend to see bees consistently entering and exiting a particular opening.

That entrance might be below a roof tile, through an air brick, through a crack in masonry, around flashing, inside a chimney or through another surprisingly small gap.

If that activity continues day after day, I would not assume the bees are simply passing through.

Why you should not block the entrance

Sealing the entrance feels logical.

There is a hole.

The bees are using the hole.

Close the hole and the problem disappears.

Unfortunately, if thousands of bees are already behind it, you have not removed the colony.

You have trapped it.

The bees may begin searching for another way out, including routes that lead further into the building.

You may also be leaving comb, brood and honey inside the cavity.

The correct sequence is generally to deal with the colony first and then address the access point once the removal has been completed appropriately.

Please do not pour petrol into the hole

This deserves its own heading because people really do attempt things like this.

I have heard versions involving petrol, insecticide, boiling water, smoke, fire and household chemicals.

Apart from the obvious safety issues, blindly introducing chemicals or flammable material into a structure does not tell you where the colony is, what is inside the cavity or where the bees may move once disturbed.

African honeybees can defend a colony very effectively.

An established colony is not something I would recommend provoking as a DIY experiment.

If the bees are simply there and nobody is in immediate danger, create distance, keep children and animals away from the entrance and arrange for the situation to be assessed.

Bees in an air brick

Air bricks are a common source of enquiries.

A customer sees bees disappearing through the ventilation holes and understandably assumes the colony must be sitting directly behind the brick.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes the bees are simply using that opening as an access route into a larger cavity.

That distinction matters because removing the air brick does not necessarily expose the whole colony.

The beekeeper needs to determine where the comb has actually been established.

Bees underneath roof tiles

Roof removals vary enormously.

A colony may be relatively accessible beneath tiles or eaves, or it may have established itself deeper within a roof or ceiling space.

Height then becomes an additional consideration.

At Bee Kulture, we treat working at height as a safety problem before we treat it as a bee problem.

Protective bee clothing does not remove the normal risks associated with ladders, roofs or awkward access.

That is one of the reasons proper fall-protection and access procedures matter on more difficult removals.

Bees inside a chimney

Chimneys can become particularly complicated when a colony has been present for a long time.

A newly established colony and a colony that has been allowed to occupy a difficult cavity for several years are very different propositions.

Early intervention is usually considerably easier than allowing a colony to occupy the same inaccessible space season after season.

Bees in a water meter or electrical box

These are also very real nesting locations.

We have dealt with removals involving bees occupying confined utility spaces.

The fact that the space is small does not mean the colony is insignificant.

Because homeowners and technicians may need regular access to water meters, electrical boxes and similar infrastructure, colonies in these locations can also create a very practical safety problem.

Do bees damage the building?

The bees are generally using an existing opening rather than chewing through your brick wall to get inside.

The more practical concern is what is being built inside the cavity.

An established colony produces wax comb and stores honey.

It also raises brood there.

If a colony is simply poisoned and abandoned inside a structure, that material does not magically disappear.

This is another reason why I prefer looking at bee removal as both a structural and biological problem rather than simply a pest-control problem.

What happens during a proper removal?

The process depends on the site.

Where necessary and possible, access is created to expose the colony.

The comb and bees are then dealt with in a way that allows the colony to be transferred from the structure into appropriate equipment for relocation.

Some removals are quick.

Others take hours.

Some require a return visit because of returning foragers or the nature of the site.

Established colonies are also often best dealt with later in the day when more of the bees have returned from foraging.

Will the bees come back?

They can, particularly if the underlying access and attraction are not addressed.

After a successful removal, the property owner should consider sealing the entry point appropriately once it is safe to do so.

Old hive material may also need attention depending on the nature of the cavity and the removal.

What I do not recommend is treating the sealing of the hole as the removal itself.

Those are two separate stages.

When should you call someone?

If a cluster has appeared temporarily on an exposed branch and is not creating an immediate danger, you may be dealing with a swarm.

If bees are continuously entering a roof, wall, chimney, air brick or another cavity, I would have it assessed sooner rather than later.

The longer a colony is established, the more comb and stores it can potentially develop.

If you contact Bee Kulture, take a photograph from a safe position showing the entrance and another photograph showing the wider area around it.

Tell us your suburb, approximately how high the entrance is and how long you have noticed the activity.

One final request.

Do not climb onto your roof to get us a better photograph.

We would much rather receive a bad photograph from the ground than have a customer fall off a ladder trying to help us diagnose a bee problem.