Somewhere within a half-mile of you, there is a full-size colony that has split in half. Half the colony leaves with the old queen and the remaining half is left inside their hive with a new queen. This is how bees reproduce and multiply in the wild. It's completely normal and a very fascinating thing to watch.

While a swarm sounds scary, a swarm of bees is actually very very unlikely to sting. Pop culture makes us be afraid of bees, but they are actually very passive. They fall into the category of leave them alone and they will leave you alone. The reason a swarm is unlikely to sting is that they do not have any comb, wax, baby bees, or honey to defend.

They are only there temporarily and don't want to die (a bee dies if they sting you). So leave them alone, call a beekeeper (link below) and watch what they do. They may not be around for long.

Inside a swarm of bees is a queen that is basically along for the ride. The bees that used to be responsible for foraging for nectar are actively trying to find a new location for their swarm to move to. They are hanging together to stay warm and to keep the queen safe. Think of it as a rest-stop on the highway for the bees.

The bees do not want to sting and are likely to leave in the next day or two. Spraying them with wasp spray or water will only agitate them and will actually make the colony fly more. Just call a beekeeper and leave them alone. A beekeeper will be happy to come to get them that day for free. If you are allergic, just give the swarm 20 yards of space and you will not have an issue.

Swarms are a great way to start a new hive, but they aren't a great way to start your first hive. Taking care of a colony of bees takes a lot of planning and learning to see if it is right for you. It's best to learn from the experience and talk with the beekeeper who comes and gets them. That beekeeper will be a good contact to have as you get started.

If you want to get into beekeeping, read our Beekeeping 101 series.

When the beekeeper arrives, they will be able to assess the situation and tell you if you can help. Swarms are very calm and it is likely you will be able to walk up and look at them with the beekeeper before they start the removal. Just ask if they have an extra veil so you can watch.

A swarm is usually about 40-60% of the colony it came from. So a very large swarm will be around 30,000 bees. But most swarms around in the range of 10,000-20,000 bees.

A swarm of honey bees contains 1 queen, mostly female worker bees and a very small amount of male drones.

When a swarm of bees is on the ground, it usually is because the queen is damaged and cannot fly. The colony will stay with the queen, even though she is not in charge of where the swarm goes. They need her, so they are not going to leave her.

Sometimes a swarm is so large the actual weight of the bees is so much that they can't hold themselves together. When that happens, the swarm may spread out among branches until they all fly off.

When the beekeeper arrives, they will be able to assess the situation and tell you if you can help. Swarms are very calm and it is likely you will be able to walk up and look at them with the beekeeper before they start the removal. Just ask if they have an extra veil so you can watch.A swarm of bees collects in different places, so no swarm removal is the same. Sometimes it's on the ground, 100' feet in a tree, on a mailbox, a car bumper, or in a bush. How a beekeeper gets to a swarm will vary, but they are wanting to capture the entire colony along with the queen. This can be done by simply shaking the swarm into a box or they can actually capture the queen and place her in a box next to it. Over the period of a couple of hours, the bees will go to the queen and the box can be moved that evening.

Sometimes the beekeeper will need a ladder or they may bring a specialized vacuum for sucking them up. Either way, it's fascinating to watch a true pro capture the swarm.

Most swarm removals are done for free, especially if they are easy to get to. It's only when the colony has moved into the building that the beekeeper will charge to remove them. And most beekeepers do not provide this service.

A beekeeper may charge if they need to drop what they are doing that minute to come to get them or if the bees are in a public place that is interfering with business. The vast majority are done for free, but it's good to ask.

Blocking the entrance is only temporary and the bees will likely find another exit, possibly to the inside of the building. Plus, when disturbing the entrance of the colony, the bees are easily irritated.

The bee removal aids are designed to be used by beekeepers for removing bees from the comb with honey on them. They won't move bees off comb with eggs or larva on them. The bees are too committed to taking care of their nest to abandon it.

You will kill a lot of honeybees when doing this, which is obviously the goal. But the way that bees build their nest, it is protected from the spray and the queen will still survive. The population will reduce significantly, but they will likely find a new entrance and move the nest away from any of the areas the hornet spray touched.

If the queen is killed, honeybees have the ability to raise a new queen from an egg in the nest. Killing the queen sets back the colony, but they are able to recover.

If the colony dies inside the colony either on purpose or naturally, what is left behind in the cavity is comb, honey, pollen, and dead bees. These are all very popular with roaches, ants, and other bugs. There is a bug called the small hive beetle that likes to lay eggs in the unprotected comb and this will actually ferment the honey. The honey ferments and then starts to run out of the comb, possibly into the dry wall or through the floors. It's not pretty.

Honey bees are not a protected species and there is no law that say they cannot be killed.

Once a colony starts the process of building a new nest, they are extremely unlikely to all leave on their own. They would either need to die or they will need to be removed from the colony. Sometimes in the spring and summer, the colony will send out a swarm of bees, but this is only half of the colony. The cavity will still have a queen, comb, honey and everything else it needs to live.

Some beekeepers will come and remove the bees from the building for free. It depends on the motivation of the beekeeper and how difficult the nest is to get to. Open-air nests, while not common are very easy to remove and may be done for free. The vast majority of beekeepers who remove bees from buildings for free are very new at it and just trying to get experience. They are not insured and most likely don't know what they are doing. Every bee removalist has to start somewhere, but just know that if they are doing it for free, it's likely because they are practicing in your home. If they get in over their head on the project, you may run into a bigger issue.

Honeybees are cavity dwellers and prefer a dark space protected from the weather. In a home or building, this is likely between the studs in a wall, the space between floor joists, in the soffit under the roof, or in the attic. Bees will build their nest in these spaces if they can get access to them. They typically make access to the cavity in the building construction where one floor meets another, a change in siding material, or where an addition meets the old construction.

For an experienced beekeeper who has been doing removing bees from buildings for years, expect it to cost an average of $600. It can be less if the nest is very new or very easy to reach. It can cost more if scaffolding is needed or the colony is behind a brick or concrete block wall.

Most beekeepers charge a flat rate that covers the first hour or two, then charge for additional time after that.

Bees can be removed in as little as 2 hours or the whole process can take 1-2 days.

The next best option is to do something called a "trap-out". This process takes over a month to finish, but it leaves the structure completely undamaged. This is helpful for trees that you want to save or buildings that cannot be damaged for historical or cosmetic reasons.

A typical removal from a building will take an average of 5 hours of labor, plus prep/cleanup time, travel time, and the time to re-establish the colony.

There are also many specialized tools for safely removing bees and the knowledge for how to use them. Often, an assistant is brought in to help with the removal and the colony of bees itself may only be worth $125-200. It could easily be worth $0, just as easily as it is worth $200.

The honey that may be removed as well is not sellable and there may not be any honey depending on the time of year.

Experienced removers (the ones you want) often have insurance and licenses, as well as overhead and vehicle costs associated with conducting be removals.

These costs are significant and any person can recognize that removing bees is a real service that is needed, especially for those with bees in their home.

The colony of bees removed from the building can have some value to the beekeeper. But it is more valuable for the property owner to have them removed than it is for the beekeeper to have the bees. This is especially true in areas with Africanized bees in the southern US.

There are much easier and cheaper ways to get bees than removing them from buildings, which is widely considered the most difficult way to obtain bees.

A viable option if the nest of bees is so high up or in an area that doesn't bother you. The colony of bees will continue to grow through the warm months and retract in size during the cold months. You may actually go months without seeing them during the winter.

In the spring, the colony will send swarms out (that's how bees reproduce) and you'll often see them in your yard as a ball of bees before they move on. The colony may die on its own which will make removing the nest much easier. You will know if the colony has died if there aren't any bees entering or exiting the entrance when the temperatures are about 60°F.

It's best to remove the comb even if the colony is dead so it doesn't attract pests. It will also very likely attract another swarm into the same cavity as a swarm will see it as a completely furnished home if the comb is left in there.

Comb is full of food that other organisms like to eat. When a colony leaves behind it's come, it leaves behind all this food that is a huge attractant to other animals. You should expect cockroaches, ants, mice and other small animals to come to the space to eat.

The majority of calls for bee removals take place in the spring and summer. This is because the colony expands its population in the spring and they are easy to see. Because of this, bee removal experts can get very busy and it could take several weeks to have the bees removed. This typically isn't something a beekeeper can respond to the same day.

Bees are attracted to the light and when they are in a dark space like between walls or floors, a light source can help draw the bees inside the building.

If you notice bees getting into a room, try to turn the light off to that room during the night so that the bees are attracted to the space. This also applies to windows in the room as well. You want to the room to be as dark as possible to keep bees from wanting to get into the room.