Buzzzz! A Honeybee Whisperer Takes Your Calls

Bee Expert Bill Whitney
Bill Whitney moves those beehives that have settled in your house. He stopped by The Morning Shift Wednesday to explain how he does his work. Jason Marck/WBEZ
Bee Expert Bill Whitney
Bill Whitney moves those beehives that have settled in your house. He stopped by The Morning Shift Wednesday to explain how he does his work. Jason Marck/WBEZ

Buzzzz! A Honeybee Whisperer Takes Your Calls

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At the end of a busy day, you look forward to a quiet house. The kids are asleep, the TV is off and just when you’re about to relax and enjoy the silence, you hear it: bzzz. The energetic hum of a bee make that thousands of bees. They could be in your attic or inside your walls. Either way, you want them out. But you can’t just poison them — poisoning a honeybee hive can have a ripple effect that can kill honeybees within a one-mile radius.

So what can a homeowner do? Morning Shift sits down with Bill Whitney, veteran beekeeper and owner of City Bee Savers for the do’s and don’ts of dealing with hives in your home.  

What happens when an exterminator kills bees in your home?

Bill Whitney: Some [exterminator companies] will just go ahead and put a powder in that [bees] take into the hive, and that kills the bees. The problem is that you have thousands of other bees from different hives within a mile-and-a-half radius now coming to rob out that honey, and it kills those other hives.

When the bees are removed from your home, what happens to the honey?

Whitney: I don’t sell any of that honey, cause I never know if someone had sprayed in there, so I’ve devised a way to feed it back to the bees.

GUEST: Bill Whitney, City Bee Savers

LEARN MORE: List of Beekeepers who’ll move your bees

Bee relocation from City Bee Savers

Honeybees a sweet perk at downtown commercial high-rises (Chicago Tribune 5/19/17)

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Click the “play” button to listen to the entire interview, which was adapted for the web by Char Daston.