Real Honey from Real Bees in the City
Honeybees live collectively in colonies inside protected enclosures called beehives. I tend beehives around the city in our neighborhoods and help keep the bees healthy & happy. Bees make honey from plant nectar, and sometimes they produce surplus honey. I harvest the surplus honey, and you can buy it as BEEBOY Honey.
2024 Update: No Longer Available For The Following (too many bees):
Wasp Removals. This is a seasonal service I offered in the past as an alternative to chemical-heavy exterminations, but the beekeeping operation needs my full attention. I recommend The Bee Hunter for the City & South, and The Bee Man for the City & North. I do some wasp removals in the fall when I have time but that’s been minimal since 2023.
Honeybee Colony Removals. With changes in climate encouraging spring swarms and an increased number of urban beekeepers, there have been many spring swarms lately. I usually can’t respond to swarms but may be able to find another local beekeeper to help you out. I don’t offer removals from structures at all, and if another local beekeeper offers these regularly, I’d love to advertise.
Swarm catches are usually free and building removals cost money. Swarms are safe and easy to catch if accessible, and with the right conditions, the colony is likely to survive. “Cut-out” removals (when the bees are inside your house) are more difficult for the beekeeper and traumatic for the colony, with a lower survival rate.
Exterminating a honeybee colony in your house invites pests and leads to fermented or contaminated honey in your walls, so that’s not a good idea. If toxic chemicals are used to kill the colony, that permeates the honey left behind, and you’re going to poison every bee in the neighborhood that inevitably comes to clean out the honey plus all the other insects or animals like mice & raccoons, which may die in your walls. If you do use an exterminator, it is critical they also remove all wax and honey to avoid poisoning everything around you.
Honey Bee Blues: I’ve been referring people asking for Cut-outs & Honeybee Removals to this company in 2025 and am hearing great reviews on their professionalism, thoroughness, and reasonable price. The company can remove the bees, usually from inside your structure, and then it’s on you to repair the hole. Give them a call.
Hive Hosting. I’d like to offer to tend beehives for you on your property, but I don’t have the availability. Hopefully at some future time I will be able to offer hosting in the city. This costs a decent amount of money & professional hive hosting services are expensive. I appreciate your pollinator friendly space but cannot put bees there for free. You can attract honeybees and more importantly native bees to your garden by planting native species and admire the bees and benefit from their work. Most plants that feed honeybees also feed a variety of our native bees, but native plants evolved to attract the local bees.
You may also be able to find someone in your neighborhood who wants to start beekeeping, and there could be a helpful arrangement for everybody if they need a space and you have it. Or I can point you in the direction of resources to become a beekeeper yourself.
Bee Talks. Semi-retired but you can ask.
This is how I sound: Sound Bite podcast with Celine Roberts, from 2016
Correction on “Sound Bite” interview: there are roughly 400 native bee species in Pennsylvania, 20000 globally. I was excited and overstated.
NEW: 6/26/20: a very casual, impromptu hive inspection and discussion for Carnegie Science Center’s “Farm Friday” series. I talked Ned through what beekeepers actually do and some of the challenges we face, and took some questions from the Livestream.
Farm Fridays recording with Farmer Ned at Hilltop Urban Farm
