Why Are Bees Important?
Many pests in the Portland Metro area do nothing but annoy us. They make messes under our crawl spaces like rodents, bite us like bed bugs or destroy our homes like carpenter ants. We don’t mind killing these for you. They do not benefit you in any way and tend to make your life miserable. However, there is one pest that we do like, and we want it to stick around—the Honey Bee.
Honey Bees play a huge part in making our gardens look beautiful in the Portland area. If you paid attention at all in science class, you already know that bees pollinate flowers. What you may or may not know is that Honey Bees are dying at an alarming rate. They are calling it “colony collapse disorder,” and nobody knows why it is happening and why our Honey Bees are dying. What would happen if we didn’t have bees?
I typed in that question in Answers.com and got the following answer:
“Flowers and other plants would no longer be pollinated causing most plants to die off, lowering the oxygen levels on the earth killing several types of animals, which leads to lower carbon dioxide, killing even more plants and lowering the oxygen levels even lower until the earth reaches climax instability, killing us all…. just kidding (about the killing us all part anyway).”
Okay, so a little dramatic, but still, there is a reason for concern. We do everything that we can to make sure that we do not lower the population of Honey Bees in our area. We get calls all the time for us to kill what people call Yellow Jackets, wasps, or hornets, only to find that they have Honey Bees. Our policy is never to exterminate a Honey Bee nest unless it is posing a real threat to humans. For example, if a nest was above a doorway in a school and kids were getting stung. Since about 3% of the population is fatally allergic to bee stings, this would give us reason to exterminate the nest. However, even in the circumstances like this, we would always suggest calling a beekeeper first. Most of them in the Portland metro area will come and take a Honey Bee colony out for free.
As a Portland pest control company, we are not interested in a short term gain at the cost of a long term loss. We want to have Honey Bees around a long time. If you are having a situation with Honey Bees and need some advice, we would happily take your call. We can get you connected with a local beekeeper or help you identify what kind of bee you might have. Either way, we are here to help.