Get Ready For Bee Season With These Tips On How To Deal With The Little Buzzers

In El Paso, spring and summer are peak bee season and sometimes that means dealing with a hive or swarm either in your backyard or even at a park or on a hiking trail. Knowing how to deal with bees could help you get away from them without getting stung. Here are a few tips:

1. Don't run from bees: Bees aren't usually aggressive unless they feel like they're being attacked. If you run across a swarm of bees, you should calmly walk away from it. You might want to run like hell, but some bees release an "alarm pheremone" that could signal other bees to swarm. Stay calm and get into either your car or house as quickly as you can.

2. Don't mess with a hive: Bees will attack to protect a hive. Get away from the hive and let the professionals take care of the situation.

The most important thing to remember about bees is you don't want to hack them off because it's very likely you will get stung. The second most important thing when dealing with bees is to remember that they are endangered. We need them to pollinate plants, especially plants that produce foods we consume. Those little buzzers are responsible for almost one-third of the food we eat, and things like wine and guacamole would become extinct without bees. Coffee growers also needs bees to pollinate their plants, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to imagine life without wine and guac and coffee.

Don't kill bees, call these companies in the El Paso and Las Cruces area for bee removal:

William Scott Anderson – (915) 504-9375 - Anderson has been raising bees since 1981 and often works with El Paso Electric because they sometimes get bees in their equipment.

Brad Kohler of Desert Oasis Pest Control - Kohler is in Las Cruces, so if you have a problem with bees in the City of the Crosses, check out his Facebook page link.

Bob Reneau with the Paseo del Norte Beekeeper's Association - I spoke with Bob on the phone and he said that if you have a swarm or a hive that need to be dealt with, call him at (915)833-7878. There are over 100 members of the Association in the El Paso area who can help deal with bee issues. He said that El Paso's bee population is a hybrid mix of Africanized and non-Africanized bees, so they can be aggressive. His advice? Stay away from the problem area and call him for help.