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Bee Keepers Anticipate Buzzing Business This Spring Thanks To Warm Winter

CALDWELL, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- The bees have been buzzing early this spring, thanks in large part to our warm winter.

Bee keepers said they're expecting a lot of swarming this season.

As CBS2's Elise Finch reported, ground bee habitats can be found around trees and in the ground.

"Even though a lot of the trees look really dormant. If you look there are little pink and red flowers in a lot of them. That means the pollen and the nectar are starting to push. That's a great inspiration for the bees and a lot of the pollinators to start coming out and to forage," Mickey the Beekeeper explained.

Mickey said he's already getting calls from concerned homeowners, and he expects more calls in a few weeks when the bees start to swarm.

"Nature's way for bees to repopulate is swarm season," Mickey said, "Which is basically when the queen bee from a colony takes half the bees with her by initially landing on a tree or side of a house somewhere, or fence, or something, and lay new queen cells. So a new queen will emerge in the old hive and a new hive, and a new colony will start somewhere else."

Experts said bees are most active on sunny days when it's 75 degrees or warmer. Strong mature bees will venture out as long as it's at least 50 degrees.

"A little bit of a bee problem in my basement so that kind of freaked me out," one woman said.

Bee removal experts said if you're seeing bees in and around your home don't swat or step on them. Most bees in the tri-state area are not aggressive but they are defense and will sting if provoked.

If you're seeing dead bees, take pictures or save them in a jar so professionals know exactly what kind of bees you have.

Don't attempt to kill the bees yourself. It's hard to do property and any surviving bees will just move to another part of your home, leaving pollen and honey for other critters to eat.

"They have cockroaches, they have mice, they have other things that are now going after the food source that's been left behind," Mickey said.

Once your bee problem is resolved, plug any possible entry points especially around windows where air conditioning units were once housed. Experts said it provides easy access for busy bees.

Bee removal isn't usually free, but it could be if they are honey bees and a bee keeper wants to relocate them.

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