Beehive in neighbor's tree, what are our options?

Question

A new neighbor moved in across the street a few weeks ago. The house had been abandoned and foreclosed on and the yard became a virtual jungle during the past year.

This morning my daughter noticed something grey in the outer branches of one of their trees. We backed up the car to see if it was an animal (we had a small raccoon in our yard last night that our dog chased away and she was worried it was an injured raccoon.) When we got close we saw that it was a basketball sized beehive. In fact we could see bees coming and going.

The new neighbors may not even know they have the beehive in their tree as it is on the side of their house (they have a corner lot) and the hive faces the street. What would the best way be to handle this? There are a lot of children in our neighborhood and my daughter will have to stand on that corner and wait for the bus starting Sept 2nd.

Do the new neighbors legally have to have the hive removed? If they don't want to eat the expense, is there a Minnesota agency that will come and take care of the problem? I want to know what my options are before approaching them. I don't want them to take an immediate dislike to us but really need to get that hive removed for the safety of my child.

Answer 1

call an exterminater but tell the neighbors first

Answer 2

Call your local animal control, they can make the owner take care of the problem, cause it can be a public nusiance. Or you can be a good neighbor annd let them know. Then if they don't take care of it, that's when you call animal control.

Answer 3

In the UK (I know you are in the US but the same rules may apply) bees are protected so if you have a bee's nest, you need to get in touch with a bee keeper and they'll come out and remove the nest and bees.  Bess also won't sting unless provoked which I know is small consolation if you have children.

Maybe just drop a note through the door "Hi, I know you've just moved in and no doubt have 1001 things you want to do but I thought you'd like to know there's a bee's nest in your garden".

Wasps nests can just be destroyed by a pest exterminator.

Answer 4

Firstly, unless your daughter looks like a flower, bees won't pay her no mind.       As the weather gets cooler bees slow down in the activity.    After the first couple of frosts  they is dead.  That is it.  Finito.      No bees will take over the nest.  It will remain deserted and disintegrate away and not even last till Xmas.   The fact you could see bees coming and going now is because the weather is still decent.  And the bees travel to the food source which is somebody's garden.(not the road).    Really, there is nothing to worry about otherwise we would all be dead by now if they were out to get us.

Answer 5

You have no right to have someone enter their property to remove that hive without their permission.  If they refuse to do it you are stuck.  It may not even be a big problem.  Your child is not likely to be bothered since she's not that close to the hive.  Its probably wasps and they're not really interested in her or other children if they leave the hive alone.  Its when people mess with hives that they get stung.