Bees in Palm Trees and Hollow Trunks Across Miami-Dade

What you might be noticing out in the yard

• Steady traffic at a single point on the trunk, usually a knot hole, a crack or an old pruning cut that never sealed over.
• Bees crawling in and out between the old leaf bases on a palm, with a low hum you can pick up from the ground below.
• A dark, sticky trail running down the bark under an opening, which can be honey or softened wax leaking from comb inside.
• Bees chasing the mower or the string trimmer every time it passes the base of one particular tree, and leaving you alone elsewhere.
• A trimming crew or arborist who stopped halfway up the trunk, climbed down and told you to call someone about the bees first.

What is going on behind it

Honey bees are cavity nesters. Before chimneys and wall voids, a hollow tree was where a wild colony lived, and a swarm still goes looking for the same thing: a dry, dark space with a narrow way in. A trunk that has rotted out behind an old wound, the pocket left where a big limb broke off, or the layered frond bases on a palm all qualify. The colony hangs sheets of comb from the top of that space and stores honey above the brood. What you see from the lawn is just the entrance; inside the hollow, the brood and honey can be well above or below it. African-derived honey bees are present in Florida and will settle in smaller spaces and defend a wider area around the nest, so a tree beside a pool, a swing set or a driveway deserves attention sooner rather than later.

Palm boots are not the same job as a hollow oak

The sabal palm, Florida's state tree, holds on to its dead leaf bases for a while after the fronds drop, and they stack up on the trunk in a crisscross pattern people call boots. Each one leaves a pocket against the trunk, and a swarm can build comb right into those pockets, spread across several bases. Because the palm does not need the old boots, they can be pried loose one at a time until the comb is exposed and lifted out. A palm trunk itself is not usually hollow the way an aging hardwood is. Live oaks, mangoes and ficus are different: their colonies sit inside a true cavity, often behind a narrow opening, so the comb has to be reached by cutting a controlled window into the wall of the hollow. Knowing which kind of tree you have tells you a lot about how big the job is before anyone arrives. If the bees are in a structure instead, see hives inside a wall or colonies in the eaves.

Before the trimming crew or arborist goes back up

A chainsaw biting into an occupied trunk, or a limb crashing down with comb inside it, sets off the colony's defense all at once, with a worker on a ladder or in a bucket right in the middle of it. The safer order is bees first, saw second. Tell the crew to hold off, keep people and pets away from that tree, and photograph the gap the bees use along with a wide shot from the street, which tells us how high the work is and how a ladder gets in. Once the colony is out and the cavity is closed, the trimmers can finish the canopy. If an arborist has already said the tree must come down, let us know: taking the comb out before the cut keeps the bees alive for relocation. Note too that Florida law lets the owner of a single-family home remove a tree without a local permit when an arborist credentialed by the International Society of Arboriculture, or a Florida licensed landscape architect, documents that it poses an unacceptable risk to people or property. A colony on its own does not make a tree a risk; a rotten, leaning trunk might.

Saving the tree, and the permit question

Cutting a tree down just to be rid of bees costs you shade and can land you in paperwork. Miami-Dade County requires a tree removal or relocation permit for any tree that is not specifically exempt under the county code, and it counts as a tree anything with a trunk at least three inches across at breast height or an overall height of twelve feet or more. Several municipalities have their own tree ordinances, including Coral Gables, Miami, Miami Beach, Pinecrest and Homestead. Taking a colony out of a cavity is not taking the tree out, so the tree, its roots and its standing with the permit office stay as they were. Storm damage changes the picture: weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) are considered a high risk for failing in hurricane winds, and a snapped limb can lay open comb nobody knew was there. If that happens, read what to do when a storm opens up a hive before going near it.

Getting the bees out without felling the tree

1. Scan the trunk for warm brood

   Brood runs warm, so scanning the trunk with thermal imaging marks where the nest sits behind bark or boots and how small an opening will do.

2. Clear the area

   Children, pets and neighbors are kept well back, the mower stays parked, and we suit up and use a little smoke before anyone touches the bark.

3. Open only what is needed

   On a palm, old leaf bases are pried loose one by one. On an oak, mango or ficus, a window is cut into the hollow wall, no larger than the comb requires.

4. Move bees and comb together

   Once the brood comb is cut out and framed, low suction draws the clinging bees into an airy carrier, queen included whenever she can be found, and the colony is driven to a beekeeper.

5. Scrape and close the cavity

   Leftover wax and honey are scraped out, and the opening is covered with screen or a fitted panel so the scent of the old nest cannot pull in the next swarm.

What we put back afterward

With a tree there is no stucco to patch or tile to relay, so the putback is all about the cavity. Every scrap of comb and honey we can reach comes out, because what stays behind ferments, draws ants and wax moths, and advertises a ready-made home to the next set of scouts. The hollow is then closed with hardware cloth or a fitted cover that lets the wood breathe. On palms, loose boots near the old nest are cleared off. If the hollow looks like a structural problem for the tree, we will tell you plainly so an arborist can judge it. Should a new colony settle in a cavity we closed, that falls under our workmanship warranty and we return to deal with it.

Miami-Dade places where big trees and swarms meet

• Redland

  This unincorporated farm area grows mango, avocado, lychee and other tropical fruit alongside many ornamental nurseries, so aging fruit trees, which can develop hollow limbs, stand near people working the rows. See groves and nurseries.

• Pinecrest

  Ranch houses on one-acre lots went up here in the 1950s and 1960s, and the village has planted over 10,000 street trees from 1997 onward, so mature canopy stands close to houses, pools and play sets.

• Coconut Grove

  This City of Miami neighborhood is known for heavy, hammock-style vegetation, and residents count it among the greenest parts of the city. Big old trees bring cavities with them.

• Coral Gables

  The city has its own tree ordinance apart from the county's, so check with the city before any tree comes down. Removing only the colony leaves the tree, and that question, alone.

Questions people ask us

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