Harvesting honey from bees in a wall?

Now I know what you must be thinking. "harvesting honey from bees in the wall, thats nasty!" almost everywhere I look on the internet they are dealt with by pest control, yet the worst possible problem from them being in the wall is honey leaking out of the wall and bees coming out and stinging you. Now I have an old building that has been sturdy and standing for a very long time, there is a colony of honey bees inside the wall with a beehive spanning atleast 16 by 8 ft. From old stories this honey bee hive has been sitting there since the 1980's without ever requiring insecticides. I am not living in this building and it is hardly even used so I am not concerned with the possible issues from them being there. I talked to several people about the hive, some suggest smoking them all out and collecting a bunch of honey to eat. however I think that is a bad idea, seeing as this hive has survived on its own for so long. Others suggested tearing apart the walls and finding the queen and putting her in a beekeeping box. And my least favorite suggestions involved spraying poison in the wall... Thats why I'm coming to you permies, because you are willing to think outside the box! Don't let me down. Do you think that there could be a way to let the bees stay in the wall, and also harvest honey from them from within the structure? Would it be possible to saw a hole in the interior of the wall, affix a bee box directly to the wall, and then pull out honey when it is ready? There are so many bees in this wall you can literally knock on the wall and hear them go. It is truly an opportunity just waiting to be utilized if there was a right way to do it. Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Would it be possible to saw a hole in the interior of the wall, affix a bee box directly to the wall, and then pull out honey when it is ready?

It might work. That would depend on if the bees decided to store honey there or not. The queen might also lay eggs there so you'll end up with a box of bees instead of honey. They might also choose to seal the hole. Or abscond (leave) because their home was disturbed.

With a colony that large it could have multiple queens. That's rare but it happens.

How is the wall constructed?  Would it be possible to build a hinged door there that could be opened for honey harvesting? A FLIR camera might give some idea of how the comb is oriented inside the wall. The best option might be to do a cutout & move the bees to a new home in bee boxes.

How old of a building are we talking? I might have concerns about lead paint or asbestos depending.

If you like having them there, their hive might be better used as a source for new swarms.

Mike Barkley wrote:It might work. That would depend on if the bees decided to store honey there or not. The queen might also lay eggs there so you'll end up with a box of bees instead of honey. They might also choose to seal the hole. Or abscond (leave) because their home was disturbed.

This was my main concern. A box inserted right into the middle of their colony might not be used for honey, heck it might not even be used at all. I started looking into other options, have you heard of the new invention flow hive? Perhaps something like this get them to deposit honey in an external box.

Mike Barkley wrote:How is the wall constructed?  Would it be possible to build a hinged door there that could be opened for honey harvesting?

K Kaba wrote: How old of a building are we talking? I might have concerns about lead paint or asbestos depending.

I know that this was constructed over 100 years ago using dry wall, and wooden external siding. Though since then it has been given external manufactured house siding. The inside of the wall was supposed to have some sort of organic insulation but it has since disappeared, and thats where the bees are. Asbestos or lead paint is not a concern, however I do not think that access to the interior of the wall directly would be an easy or safe harvesting method.

Is it just the honey harvest you are after, or do you need the bees out of the space for some reason? If you just want the honey, I would set up a few trap boxes in the nearby area and catch the swarms that issue from it each year.

Otherwise, you really are limited to opening up the cavity and physically removing chunks of comb. You don't need to remove everything - for instance, you can leave the brood comb intact - but you definitely need access to the space.

The comb itself, for a colony that old, is likely to be very dark and contain a lot of detritus - old wax moth casing, dried up old pollen, propolis. They honey will be fine, but don't expect pristine white wax with it.

I don't recommend the flow hive for any situation except maybe for someone who is physically unable to work with bees otherwise. In your case it seems like it would be an expensive experiment that might fail unless you remove the bees from the wall first.

It sounds like it might be possible to remove a section of paneling for harvesting. I don't know though. That just seems like extra work & doing things the hard way. Without knowing all the details ... I'd probably either leave them alone & forget about harvesting the honey or remove them, give them new hives, & be done with it. Capturing swarms as Michael suggested is another good option but would take longer & be a yearly event. Welcome to beekeeping:)