16 City Trees
This Roundtable asks city foresters and bee-
keepers about ways to save honeybees in
city trees and parks. City foresters also share
their approach to dealing with wasps, yellow
jackets, and aggressive Africanized bees.
There has been, in the last ten or so years, a
large increase in the number of people practicing back-
yard beekeeping. They and more veteran beekeepers
may be able to help with a hive removal. You can con-
tact your Cooperative Extension office for a list of local
beekeepers or see online directories like www.beecul-
ture.com/directory/find-local-beekeeper and www.beer-
emovalsource.com/bee-removal-list.
People may not be aware that once bees are away from
the hive, most honeybees are not at all aggressive, and
some aren't even aggressive when you're close to the
hive. If the hive is out of the way (like the one in a tree
in one of our downtown parks that is about 15 to 20
feet/5 to 6 m up, in a decayed cavity), most people will
never know it's there. This particular park is the site of
a weekly, very active farmers market, and we've never
had a complaint about the bees. I suspect most people
don't know they are there.
If we do have to do a tree removal, the only method I've
seen used here that has a chance of saving the hive
involves pruning away the wood above the top point in
the hive, then tying off the section of trunk with the hive,
cutting below it, and lowering it onto a waiting truck to
be sped away to some safe place. The trunk is then
set on the ground and the bees are left to fend for
themselves. The move is disruptive, but it may allow the
colony to survive. The local arborist who has done this
procedure borrows a bee suit for the final cutting stage,
but up to that moment the bees really don't seem to be
stirred up by the noise and commotion.
If there is a colony that simply has to be eradicated,
most beekeepers recommend a 1:1 water:dish soap
mix. Put this in a sprayer of some sort, and dose the
bees. It not only suffocates them (as with an insec-
ticidal soap), but the thickness of the mixture gums
up their wings, etc. The advantage of this approach
is there is very little chance of unintended damage to
non-target organisms, and it's very effective—I've heard
of people using it to take out hives of Africanized bees.
Certainly permethrin or carbaryl will do the job as well,
but being actual chemical toxins, they have a bigger
chance of unintended damage.
Wasps are a bit different, in that they have few folks out
there talking up their ecological value. They are actual-
ly pretty good predators of landscape pest insects, so
that's a plus. Out here we often get the ground-nesting
Western yellow jacket, and the combination of their nat-
urally hostile disposition and their ability to sting multi-
ple times without dying (unlike honeybees) make them
much more problematic. We would take control actions
if either our grounds crew or the public had complaints
about them. If it's possible to find the nest entrance,
then a dusting of the entrance area with permethrin or
carbaryl in a powder form might be effective.
Bee hives can be tricky to spot, as they almost always
S M A R O U N D T A B L E
Bees in Municipal Trees and Parks
Albuquerque City Forester Joran Viers is also a beekeeper. Photo
by Jessica Viers
