Bees found during a home inspection in Miami-Dade

Why an inspector writes bees down

Florida law describes a home inspection as a limited visual examination of the readily accessible systems and components of a house: the structure, roof covering, exterior, plumbing, electrical, HVAC and site conditions that affect the structure. Inspectors don't cut into drywall or lift roof tiles, so a colony reaches the report as a sighting rather than a diagnosis, such as a short line about bee activity at a soffit corner or a gap in the stucco.

That line could mean a few foragers working a flowering hedge, a swarm resting for a day, or a colony that has been building comb inside a wall cavity for months. The report can't tell those apart, and neither can you from the driveway. What sorts them out is the traffic pattern. Bees flying straight into one opening and back out, steadily, all day, point to an established nest. A cluster hanging in the open on a branch or fence points to a swarm that may leave on its own. The guide to scout bees covers the earlier stage, when a handful of bees are only inspecting a gap.

The termite report is a different document

Buyers and lenders in Florida commonly order a wood-destroying organism inspection, the WDO or termite report, next to the general inspection. State statute defines a wood-destroying organism as arthropod or plant life that damages and can reinfest seasoned wood in a structure, and it names the list: termites, powder-post beetles, old house borers and wood-decaying fungi. Honey bees aren't on it. A WDO inspector who happens to notice a colony may mention it, but the form isn't built to locate one, and the statute says the report does not promise those organisms are absent unless it spells out otherwise.

So a clean termite report and a bee note from the home inspector can both be accurate at once. The harm a long-settled colony does is also different from termite damage: wax and honey soaking into drywall, moisture held around the comb, and stains that eventually show through a ceiling. Keep the WDO paperwork and the bee question as two separate items in your transaction file.

Selling: what you already know matters

Florida sellers can't lean on buyer beware. In Johnson v. Davis, the Florida Supreme Court held that a seller who knows of facts materially affecting the value of a home, facts that are not readily observable and not known to the buyer, has a duty to disclose them. A colony living behind a bathroom wall can fit that description. How it is worded on your disclosure is a question for your real estate attorney, and nothing on this page is legal advice.

Here is the practical side. Taking the bees out does not erase what you knew, but it changes what you are able to say. A note that a colony in the east wall was removed alive on a given date, the comb was taken out, the cavity sealed and the drywall patched is much easier for a buyer to accept than bees, status unknown. Ask for photos and an itemized invoice so the record backs up every part of that note. If the house is a rental, the tenant and landlord guide sorts out who should call and who should pay.

Buying: ask for live removal, not spray

When the bee note shows up in your inspection results, you have a few levers. You can ask the seller to have the colony removed and the damage repaired before closing, ask for a credit, or cancel if your contract terms allow it. Whichever you pick, put the method in writing. Spray or a pest treatment pushed through the entry hole kills the bees but leaves the comb behind, and in an attic that bakes all summer or a west-facing wall, that comb can soften, leak honey and pull ants, roaches and wax moths into the cavity. Then the smell and the stain become yours.

A live removal opens the cavity, lifts out the bees along with all of their wax, and sends the colony to a beekeeper. Name it in your repair request, along with comb and honey cleanup and repairs after removal, and ask that the photos and invoice reach you before the walkthrough. If the colony is inside block or frame walls, expect the repair to be the larger share of the work.

Fitting the job inside your closing window

Contract dates leave little slack, so the order of steps matters. First, call with the address and a copy of the inspector's note. Calls reach a person at 3 a.m. as readily as at noon, the 24-hour response guarantee starts with that call, and a caller who is being stung is helped before anything else. Second, the visit: the crew follows the flight path and uses thermal imaging to find where the warm cluster sits behind the surface, which tells both sides whether this is a small cut or a large opening. What thermal imaging shows explains that step. Third, the removal and the sealing, so scouts from the next swarm don't claim the empty space. Fourth, the patch. The roofers, painters and other licensed contractors who rebuild the stucco, drywall or tile work for us directly, so closing the surface does not mean booking a second company.

Book the first visit early in the inspection period. Emergency work after dark or on Saturday and Sunday carries a higher rate than a weekday slot, and there is no reason to pay that premium because the note sat in someone's inbox. Visits cover the whole county, from Aventura and Miami Gardens down to Homestead and out to the county line.

Paperwork a buyer will actually read

You can ask for photos and an itemized invoice on any job, and during a sale they carry more weight than on an ordinary job. Useful photos show the opened cavity with comb still in it, the same cavity empty, and the finished patch. The invoice separates each part of the work: the removal, the comb and honey taken out, the sealing, and any carpentry, stucco, roofing or paint. A buyer's agent can see at a glance that the problem was handled at its source rather than sprayed and left.

File a copy with your closing documents. Workmanship is warrantied, which means a sealed opening that draws bees again gets a return visit, and an invoice naming the exact location makes that easy to confirm later. The article on why bees come back explains why an old nest site keeps attracting swarms when comb and scent are left in place.

Who pays, and roughly how much

Who pays is part of your negotiation, but the figures themselves are plain. Small, reachable colonies cost the least: a ground-level job, such as bees in an irrigation valve box beside the driveway, sits around $300 to $400. Once a wall, a tile or flat roof or a soffit has to be opened and rebuilt, the total can reach the thousands with repairs included. The quote is free, which gives both sides a number to write into a repair addendum or a credit request, and the drivers behind a bigger or smaller bill are listed on our pricing page.

In a condo or townhouse community the colony may sit in a common area the association controls, and the board may ask for proof of insurance before anyone touches the building. The board can be sent COIs, and the page for associations and property managers walks through those arrangements.

Questions people ask us

Removal pages that go with this article

Where in Miami-Dade this comes up