When honeybees swarm, the old queen leaves the hive with most of the bees. They usually cluster on a limb of a tree for several days while scout bees search for suitable cavities to nest in. They actually “tell” other bees where the cavity is by dancing on the surface of the swarm. If enough bees start visiting the cavity, the swarm will take flight and move in to start making new honeycomb for their nest. Problems arise when the nest is in someone’s house or a tree that is close to where people frequently go. Honeybees sting to defend their nest but not when they are foraging on flowers (unless you step on them). Bees rarely pose a stinging threat unless you are very close to the entrance to their nest, or if one accidentally flies into your hair, gets stuck in your clothing, or you step on one barefoot. If the entrance is above the heads of kids that are in the area, it is very unlikely they will get stung, unless they throw stones at it. If the kids are in the flightpath, they could get bees stuck in their hair and get stung, or the bees may see them as a threat. Removing bees from trees requires opening the tree or cutting it down so that you can cut out the brood comb and get the queen. It is best to take the brood comb and wire pieces of it into empty frames in a standard hive. If you get the queen, the rest of the bees will move to the hive within a few hours. It can then be moved to a new location, preferably when it gets dark so that all the bees are inside. There is another method to get most of the bees out of a tree but it takes up to two months and is not always successful. In fact, I don’t personally know someone who has told me they did it successfully. It involves sealing all but one entrance and putting an inverted screen funnel over the entrance so that bees can exit but not return. A hive is placed very near the exit hole containing some empty comb. This method gets most of the bees to adopt the new hive, but the queen and a few bees will remain in the tree and new bees will emerge, so the nest continues. If it is absolutely necessary to kill the bees, there is a dust called Apicide that is registered to kill honeybees. Seven dust is more readily available and contains the same type of active ingredient. It can be injected using a dus sprayer into the entrance. After several treatments, the colony will eventuall die. Some exterminators do not kill honeybees because they believe they are endangered. Officially, honeybees are not an endangered species and it is legal to kill them. – Greg Hunt, Purdue University