Wasp & Bee Removal in Monterey, CA

Local Context

Deep Eaves, Canyon Banks and a Waterfront Full of Food

Yellow jackets in Monterey peak from August through October, when colonies hit maximum population and foragers swing hard toward protein and sugar. In this city that timing lands on top of the outdoor season — picnics at El Estero and Veteran's Memorial Park, patio dining along Alvarado Street, and the food traffic around Fisherman's Wharf. Ground-nesting yellow jackets favor dry banks and abandoned rodent burrows on the canyon slopes above Aguajito and Josselyn Canyon, and they will take a wall void through a gap in old siding just as readily.

Paper wasps get the architecture. Monterey's Victorians and craftsman houses have deep overhangs, open rafter tails and covered porch ceilings — sheltered, dry, out of the marine drip — which is precisely where Polistes builds an open comb. We pull them off eave framing, pergolas, attic vent louvers, and the underside of the cantilevered balconies on Monterey Colonial-style houses every summer.

Honey bees are a different call altogether. Swarms are common in spring, and a cluster hanging in a hedge or on a fence post in a Monterey yard is usually a colony in transit that moves on in a day or three. Once bees are going in and out of a gap in a soffit or a chimney, comb is being built inside the structure — and in an old Monterey house with lath and plaster that means removing comb and honey, not just bees, or you inherit ants, rodents and staining afterward.