Originally Posted by kgbenson

It is very, very difficult to repel bees off of comb if there is brood. This time of year, and in your area any time of the year there will be comb with brood.
Very good to know; you are saying that the bees must either be physically removed or killed. They will not leave.

There are repellents that beekeepers use to have bees vacate honey supers at the time of harvest. These are quite powerful, and work very very well, but will do nearly nothing to move bees off of comb with brood. It will agitate them and make them defensive. Gasoline, diesel, insecticides will really aggravate them.

Bear in mind that repellents also wear off. The presence of old comb and bee odors however persist and are very attractive to future swarms. (in fact one way to get more bees is set out some old equipment that had previously housed bees!) In other words, unless you get rid of them entirely, and remove the comb and seal the thing up, you are fairly likely to have more bees in the future.

That would be great if they came back nx yr. Next year I will set up swam boxes and I would really like to have a hive about for pollination purposes that I would feed during lean times of the year.
I will seal off the shed and keep it sprayed which I should be doing anyway. Except in the past it was only inside the shed. Now I have to do the outside also.


Not least of all is that you will be leaving pollen and honey and bee larvae in the void. All of these, when not protected by the bees are very interesting to other critters. Honeycomb is also very thin wax, and if the colony is no there to modulate the temps, can melt, then there will be a gawdawful mess that is far harder to mitigate.

Relative to critters. While there are bears within 10 miles of my place (Old "Air products nature reserve"), none have ever at least for many, many years (Probably since the 19th century) been seen where I am, but it could change. Wild hogs normally do not make it up the creek to where I am. Leaving raccoons and such. My guess is that the fireants would clean up the mess. Shed is distant from house and I use it also to store garbage so smell is not a big factor.

Not the answer you are looking for, but the best one in 99% of circumstances.
I am looking for the truth and it is what it is.
Keith