If you’ve Googled “bee removal cost” you’ve probably gotten a wide range — anywhere from “$0 (call us free!)” to “$2,500 for a chimney job.” Both numbers can be true, depending on what’s actually being done. This is a transparent breakdown of what live honeybee removal in Central Pennsylvania actually costs, why prices vary, and how to think about the value vs. the cheaper-looking alternatives.

We’re Been’s Bees, a 10-year owner-operated beekeeping business in Hummelstown, PA. We post our pricing publicly so you don’t have to call to find out. No bait-and-switch, no high-pressure sales call, no “we’ll let you know after we drive out.”

The headline numbers

Most live honeybee removal jobs in Central PA fall in this range:

Job type	Typical price	What it covers
Standard	$650	Accessible from a stool or stepladder — one-story soffits, low porch eaves, ground-level wall openings
Moderate	$750 – $1,000	Ladders or scaffolding required — second-story walls, taller chimneys, deeper masonry row-homes
Complex	$1,200+	Bucket lift required — tall Victorian roofs, hard-access chimneys, multi-story complications

Free on-site estimate before any paid work starts. No deposit, no commitment. If you want to see the live page where these tiers are pinned, it’s our removal page.

Free swarm collection — bees clustered on a tree, fence, or yard rather than inside a structure — is a separate thing and is genuinely free in most cases.

Why bee removal costs what it does

Three things drive the price:

1. Labor time

A typical wall removal is 3–6 hours of work. Bigger or more difficult jobs can be a full day. The work itself is hot, awkward, sting-prone, and requires specialized skills. We’re carefully cutting through your home (siding, drywall, plaster, lath, occasionally cinder block) without hitting pipes, wires, or structural elements. Then we vacuum tens of thousands of bees alive without harming them, hand-cut and reframe brood comb with rubber bands, and seal the cavity.

Compare that to a typical pest control visit — 30 minutes of spraying. The price difference reflects the actual work.

2. Access equipment

The price tier almost always tracks what we need to physically reach the colony:

Stool or stepladder is the cheapest scenario.
Ladders or scaffolding add setup time, safety equipment, and risk.
Bucket lift rentals run $300–$500/day before our labor. If the colony is on a third-story chimney, there’s no way around it.

3. Specialized equipment

We use Everything Bee Vac and Colorado Bee Vac — purpose-built bee vacuums that capture bees alive at low suction. Standard shop vacs kill the entire colony, which is what pest companies use when they’re spraying. Our vacuums are not cheap; the brood-comb framing process takes more time than just bagging dead bees; the vehicle and apiary infrastructure to transport the colony home all add up.

A pest company “removing” bees with a shop vac and bug spray for $200 is not doing the same thing.

What’s included in the price

Every removal we book includes:

✅ Free on-site estimate before any paid work starts
✅ Locating the colony with thermal imaging
✅ Live extraction of all the bees and the queen
✅ Salvaging brood comb (eggs and developing bees) into our transport hive
✅ Sealing the entry point with a long-term solution
✅ Plastic sheeting to cover the interior cavity until you can repair the wall
✅ Cleanup of bee-related debris (dead bees, wax, etc.)
✅ Transport of the colony to one of our apiaries
✅ Insurance coverage in case of accidental damage to pipes/wires

If the homeowner provides a food-safe container, we’ll also save the cleanest honey for them at no extra charge — it’s raw, hyper-local, and made literally inside your own walls. Nothing else compares.

What’s NOT included

Two things that catch some homeowners off guard:

Repairs to the wall, ceiling, or roof

We’re licensed and insured beekeepers, not contractors. Our license and insurance cover gaining access to the bees — cutting siding, drywall, soffit, etc. — and they cover any accidental damage to utilities (occasionally we hit a wire or pipe and our policy handles it). They do not cover putting the wall back together.

After we leave, your home is sealed weatherproof: exterior cavity is sealed, interior cut is covered with heavy plastic sheeting and tape. The drywall, siding, or roofing repair is a separate job for a handyman or contractor — usually a few hundred dollars depending on what was opened.

This is true for every legitimate beekeeper-led removal. It’s not a hidden upsell; it’s the structure of how trades work in Pennsylvania. If a “bee removal” company tells you they’ll also do the repair, double-check they’re licensed for both — most aren’t.

Wasps, hornets, or yellow-jackets

We do live honeybee removal only. We don’t kill bees, and we don’t spray wasps. Real beekeepers don’t mix the two. If you’re calling about wasps or hornets, you’ll need a licensed exterminator — we’d be happy to refer you to one we trust. Bee removal sites that list “wasp control” alongside “live bee removal” are usually general pest companies or lead-generation services, not actual beekeepers.

What makes a removal more expensive

A few things bump a job from Standard ($650) up the scale:

Height: anything past stepladder height adds time + ladder/scaffolding/lift cost
Masonry: comb in a brick row-home or chimney runs deeper than wood-frame, and access is harder
Established colonies (multiple years old): more comb, more bees, more time
Inside the home rather than just exterior wall: more interior protection needed
Multiple colonies on one property: each gets its own treatment

We give you a final price during the on-site estimate before any work starts. If we miscalculated and the job actually takes longer than expected, that’s our problem — the price you’re quoted is the price you pay.

Why swarm collection is free

A separate situation: if you have a swarm of bees clustered on a tree, fence, mailbox, or porch railing — that’s a colony in transit, not yet established in a structure. We collect those at no charge in most cases.

Why? Because:

The bees aren’t damaging your property yet
Catching a swarm is much faster work than wall removal (15–30 minutes typically)
The colony is a thriving free addition to our apiary
We genuinely don’t want to charge for something that benefits both of us

More about free swarm collection.

The exception is swarms in very tricky locations — tall poles, deep chimneys, swarms that have already started moving into a wall — those may carry a fee, which we’ll discuss with you upfront before any work begins.

”But pest control quoted $200 to spray them”

Yes — and that’s the real cost comparison.

A pest company spraying bees out of your wall is doing something fundamentally different from live removal. They’re killing a colony with insecticide and walking away. The price difference reflects that. Here’s what happens after the cheap option:

Cost timeline	Spray-and-leave	Live removal
Day 1	$200	$650
Week 2	Dead bees rotting in the wall	Fresh-sealed cavity, no smell
Month 2	Honey leaking through drywall, $300+ to clean up	All clean
Month 3	Wax moth and ant infestation, pest control round 2 ($400)	All clean
Year 1	Wall stains, possible drywall replacement ($600+)	All clean
Year 2	A new swarm moves into the same empty cavity (the smell attracts them) → repeat the whole problem	Cavity sealed, no re-entry

By the time you’ve fixed the spray-job damage, you’ve spent more than the live removal would have cost — and you’ve contributed to honeybee population decline. Live removal is genuinely cheaper long-term. It’s also legal, ethical, and clean.

”But this lead-gen site offered $400…”

You may have seen newer “Harrisburg Bee Removal” type websites quoting cheaper prices. A few things to know about those:

Many are lead-generation services, not actual beekeepers. They capture your call, sell your information to subcontracted “providers,” and skim a 20–30% fee on the work. The “provider” is then incentivized to do the cheapest possible job to make their numbers work.
The cheaper number often doesn’t include what’s actually needed. A $400 quote becomes $700 once they’re on-site and “discover” complications.
The contractor who shows up may have never met you, doesn’t know the area, and disappears after the job.

Owner-operated beekeepers like us are pricing what the work actually costs to do well. Lead-gen middlemen are pricing what gets you to call.

The simplest way to tell the difference: ask if they handle wasps. Real beekeepers don’t kill wasps. If a “bee removal” company offers wasp/hornet control, they’re either pest control extending into bee work, or a generalist marketing operation. They’re not beekeepers.

How to get an accurate quote for your situation

The easiest way: text us a photo and a description.

(717) 583-8332

Helpful things to include:

A photo of the entry point (where you see bees flying in/out)
A photo of the surrounding area (one-story or two-story? siding, brick, soffit?)
Roughly how long they’ve been there (a week vs. two years matters)
Your address (Hummelstown, Hershey, Harrisburg, etc.)

We can usually give you a same-day callback with a ballpark estimate, and schedule a free on-site evaluation for an exact price.

A note on “free” estimates

Some companies charge a “trip fee” for the on-site estimate, which can run $75–$150 even if you don’t book. We don’t. The estimate is genuinely free and there’s no obligation to book if our number doesn’t work for you. We’d rather you walk away than feel pressured into a job — that’s how we’ve stayed in business for ten years.

Quick reference — by city

We do live bee removal across Central PA at the same pricing tiers regardless of location:

Hummelstown — our home base, fastest response
Hershey — minutes east of base
Harrisburg — full metro coverage
Mechanicsburg — West Shore
Palmyra — minutes east
Middletown — southern Dauphin
Elizabethtown — western Lancaster County
Linglestown — Lower Paxton
Colonial Park — Lower Paxton
Camp Hill — West Shore, Cumberland County
Lancaster — Lancaster County

Ready to talk pricing for your specific job?

Call or text (717) 583-8332. Send a photo. Free on-site estimate, no pressure, no upsell. We’ll give you the actual number for your actual job before any paid work begins.