Dear property owner
This time of year the bees are hungry and aggressive. We have many calls for help from restaurants, schools golf courses and other outdoor facilities being plagued by bees. This is because the flowers have stopped yielding nectar and the bee swarms are still very strong from the honey flow in December. You will find that your main problems will be with bees flying around the dustbins and refreshment areas where there are cool drinks and other sweet items.
If any of your clients, patrons or pupils gets stung and they are allergic there could be serious legal implications. However if it can be show that you as the owner or proprietor have taken all possible precautions such as contracting our services you cannot be held responsible.
During our 35 years experience in resolving such problems, we have found that the only truly effective way to do it is to trace the exact place where the hive itself is located, and remove it from the area. The hive could be anywhere within a +-1km radius of your situation, and the bees would be found either in a manmade structure, a natural place like in a hollow tree or under a rock.
We specialise in tracing the bees back to their hive and then doing a permanent removal. Our services would include an ongoing maintenance programme, where we would regularly and continually check old sites to see if new swarms have moved in, in addition to finding any new sites. We already provide this service for many of the major golf courses and restaurants in the Gauteng area, and could easily extend our services to include your area.
Any attempt to keep the bees away from the affected areas by way of any form of spraying, or any other repellent, is not an efficient way of solving this problem. The whole swarm, including the queen and all the combs, must be completely removed.
Our normal charges for such a service would be R490 per hour for tracing, plus/minus R490 for removal of each swarm found. If a swarm were found in a very awkward or inaccessible position, any additional costs would be discussed with you first.
We estimate that it would take us approximately I hour to find each swarm and there are usually 2 or 3 swarms in the area.
We would very much like to be of service to you in this area and would welcome further discussions at your convenience.
Yours sincerely
TERRY WINCHESTER
