Miami Shores Bee Hives in Shoreland-Era Stucco and Tile

In 1924 the Shoreland Company set out to build 'America's Mediterranean' on the bay north of Miami, and the hurricane of September 1926 stopped the plan before it was finished. What did get built still sets the look of the village: 118 Mediterranean-inspired houses from the Shoreland years, 25 of them now on the National Register of Historic Places, along wide streets lined with old trees. Miami Shores became a village on January 2, 1932, and it is still mostly single-family homes, with Barry University's main campus and a 1939 golf course inside its limits.

For honey bees, that mix is close to ideal. A house that has settled for nearly a century can have a hairline gap where stucco meets a window arch or where a run of tile has lifted, and a colony needs an entrance only about the width of a pencil. The canopy gives a swarm somewhere to hang while its scouts inspect those gaps. The likely hiding places here are walls, roofs, eaves and trees, and the right approach depends on which one you have.

Gaps a Shores colony is likely to use

Notes by part of the village

• Toward the bay

  The village's eastern edge is Biscayne Bay, and the Shoreland Company's master plan for Greater Miami Shores counted 5 2/3 miles of bay frontage. Weather off the open water is hard on roof edges and paint, so on these blocks check the windward side of the roof and any storage boxes by the dock first.

• Biscayne Boulevard frontage

  One of the village's two small commercial strips runs along Biscayne Boulevard. Storefronts here have customers walking in all day, so tell us which door they use and the crew sets up away from it. A landlord or property manager who wants a COI before work starts gets one. See work for businesses and property managers.

• Shops on Northeast 2nd Avenue

  The other commercial area is the small strip along Northeast 2nd Avenue, where shops sit close together. A colony in a sign box or a shared wall affects the neighbors as well, so the visit is timed around foot traffic and the work area is taped off.

• Around the country club

  Miami Shores Country Club's course was cleared from 130 acres of woodland and opened in 1939, partly funded by the Works Progress Administration. If your yard backs onto the course, mention it when you call so we can plan access and keep the work on your side of the line.

• Near Barry University

  Barry University's main campus, about 122 acres, sits inside the village. If you rent a house nearby, or own one you rent out, our guide for tenants and landlords sorts out who should make the call and who pays.

• The north and west edges

  To the north the village meets Biscayne Park, to the west unincorporated Pinewood, to the southwest El Portal and to the south the City of Miami. Bees pay no attention to a village limit, and neither does our service area, which runs to the county line in every direction.

Why an older stucco house suits a colony

A honey bee colony wants a dry, dark cavity of roughly ten gallons with one narrow entrance it can guard. An older house can offer that in several places at once: the space between studs behind interior plaster or drywall, the cells of hollow block, the void above a ceiling where a gable vent has lost its screen. Over the decades stucco cracks at corners and where additions meet the original walls, and the caulk around window frames shrinks. None of these gaps looks like much from the sidewalk.

Once inside, bees build wax comb and fill it with honey and brood, and within a season that can add up to many pounds of material in the wall. Sealing the entrance with the bees still inside does not end the problem. Trapped bees hunt for another exit, sometimes into the house, and abandoned comb softens in the heat, leaks honey and draws pests. The colony and the comb both have to come out, which is what our comb and honey cleanup step is for.

Opening a historic wall and putting it back

Of the 118 Mediterranean-inspired houses the Shoreland Company built, 25 are on the National Register. Mediterranean Revival design typically means stuccoed walls, red tile roofs, arched windows and wrought iron balconies with window grilles, and finishes like these are hard to match if the patch is treated as an afterthought.

Before anything is cut, a thermal camera maps the warm mass of bees and brood, so the opening is only as large as the comb requires and sits where it can be blended in. The comb comes out by hand, the bees go into a ventilated box for a beekeeper, and then the wall is closed, the tile reset and the texture matched by roofers, painters and licensed contractors who work for us directly. If your house carries a historic designation, ask the village whether exterior repairs need its sign-off before work starts. Ask, and you will get photographs of every stage plus an itemized invoice to keep with the house records. Read more on repairs after removal and what a thermal scan reveals.

Swarms in the canopy

A cluster of bees the size of a football hanging from a limb over your driveway is a swarm: part of an established colony with its queen, resting while scouts check possible homes. Swarming bees are full of honey and tend to be calm, and many clusters leave within a day or two. The question is where they go next. On a street of older houses the scouts may choose your soffit or a wall cavity over a hollow tree.

Your part is simple: clear the area under the branch, leave the cluster unsprayed, and phone us. Collecting a cluster before it moves in is simpler and costs less than cutting comb out of a wall later, as the swarm pickup page describes. A handful of bees poking at one crack may be scouts, covered in our guide to scout bees. And if bees return to a spot after a removal, this guide explains the scent that draws them and why the seal matters.

Cost, timing and paperwork

Price follows access. When a crew member standing on the lawn can reach the bees, say a cluster in a hedge or a colony in a curbside meter box, the visit is generally priced about $300 to $400. A hive built into a wall cavity or under a roof is a different job: an opening, hand removal of the comb, then a rebuild, and the biggest of those climb into the thousands. After dark and on weekends, an emergency visit is billed at a higher rate than the same work on a weekday. You pay nothing for the quote, and our cost breakdown shows which parts of a job drive the total.

There is no hour when the phone goes to a machine, and each request falls under our 24-hour response guarantee. Shops on the boulevard or Northeast 2nd Avenue, and any HOA or condo board, can have a COI, meaning proof of our insurance, sent over before the crew pulls up. If you spend part of the year elsewhere, the seasonal home guide covers what a neighbor or caretaker can do while you are away.

How a visit to a Shores home runs

1. Photo first, then a call

   A single photo of the hole the bees use, plus a word on where it is (wall, roof, tree or box), gets the conversation started. Mention any stings at the top of the call, since those go ahead of everything else.

2. A walk around with the camera

   The crew parks on your street, walks the outside of the house with a thermal camera and marks where the comb sits. You hear the price before any tile is lifted or stucco cut.

3. Bees out, comb out

   A low-suction bee vacuum moves the colony into a screened box, and the comb is cut free for a beekeeper. Every scrap of honey and wax leaves with the crew, because leftovers can sour in the wall and pull in another swarm.

4. Sealed, rebuilt, warrantied

   Nothing is left open. The entry hole is blocked and the cut section rebuilt, with stucco texture, tile and paint brought back to how the house looked, by our own licensed crew. If bees ever turn up again at a gap we closed, the warranty on our workmanship brings the crew out again.

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