We Removed a Beehive and Found Green Honey Inside.
Updated: 3 days ago
On June 22, 2026, Betsy and I drove out to a Las Vegas home for what we expected to be a routine bee removal. The homeowner had honey bees living in an irrigation valve box in the yard. We have done this many times.
We opened the box and the honey was green.
Not golden. Not amber. Green, in a way that suggested someone had made a real coloring decision. After hundreds of bee removals across Las Vegas, neither of us had seen anything like it. We stood there for a moment, which is not a technique we normally teach.
What We Actually Found
The colony itself looked completely healthy. The bees were active and calm. The brood was normal. The wax comb was unremarkable in every way, except for what was stored inside it.
Only portions of the honey had turned green. Not all of it. Not the wax, not the bees, not the brood. Just some of the stored honey, displaying a color so unusual we initially questioned whether it was actually honey at all.
We considered the possibilities right there at the job site. Chemical contamination? Mold? Something wrong with the colony? But the bees were behaving normally, the comb looked healthy, and the color was confined to the honey alone. Whatever caused this wasn't harming the colony.
Before removing another piece of comb, we grabbed our phones and started documenting everything.
That decision changed what happened next.
The Internet Weighs In
That evening, I posted photos to r/Beekeeping on Reddit, genuinely curious whether any other beekeeper had ever encountered green honey.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. See it Here
Within hours, the post had attracted thousands of views and hundreds of comments. Beekeepers from across the country and internationally began sharing theories. People who had never kept a bee in their lives were following along and asking questions.
The leading theories from the community:
Colored sugar syrup. Bees will readily collect sugar water if it's available nearby, and if that syrup contained food dye, green dye specifically, the stored honey could take on that color. This is the explanation most experienced beekeepers in the thread found most plausible.
Unusual nectar sources. Certain plants produce nectars that can influence honey color, though vivid green is exceptionally rare from natural floral sources alone.
Environmental contamination. Some commenters raised the possibility of irrigation water additives or landscaping chemicals interacting with the stored honey, though this seemed less likely given the colony's apparent health. Antifreeze was even mentioned several times!
No single explanation was confirmed. The thread stayed active for days.
Green Honey Has Happened Before
As unusual as our discovery was, it isn't without precedent.
The most documented case of anomalously colored honey occurred in Ribeauvillé, France, where beekeepers discovered their hives were producing blue and green honey in 2012. The source turned out to be residue from M&M candy shells being processed at a biogas plant several miles away.
Bees had been collecting the sugary waste instead of flower nectar, and the artificial colors passed directly into their honey.
Pink honey has been reported in isolated cases tied to heavily red dyed hummingbird feeder syrup, something that's not uncommon in residential Las Vegas yards.
We can't say with certainty what the source was in our case. The irrigation box location, the residential yard setting, and the fact that only some of the honey was affected are consistent with the bees having access to a colored external sugar source at some point during the colony's establishment.
What Happens to the Bees
The colony was successfully removed and relocated to one of our apiaries, which is how we handle every job. We don't exterminate honey bee colonies. We carefully extract the comb, protect the queen, and move the bees somewhere they can continue doing what they do.
The green honey came with them.
We're monitoring the colony. The bees appear completely healthy. If the color source was a nearby sugar supply, like a feeder, a product, something in the yard, they won't have access to it at the apiary, and any new honey they produce should return to normal color.
Did We Try It?
It's the question everyone keeps asking us.
Honestly, we thought about it. Bright green honey is not something you see every day, and there was a part of us that was genuinely curious what it tasted like.
But we didn't eat it, and the reason is simple. We didn't know what made it green.
If the source was food-grade dye from a hummingbird feeder or colored sugar syrup, the honey was probably fine. But the Reddit thread surfaced something that stuck with us: multiple people raised the possibility of antifreeze. Propylene glycol has a sweet taste, bees will collect it, and it can possibly end up in honey.
We couldn't rule it out.
When the list of possible sources includes antifreeze, the decision gets easy pretty fast. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.
The Strangest Thing We've Ever Pulled Out of the Ground
People ask us regularly what the most unusual removal we've ever done was.
Until this one, we'd tell different stories depending on the day. Rooftop colonies, wall voids packed with years of honeycomb, a hive built inside an outdoor speaker.
Now we have a definitive answer.
It was a Tuesday morning in Las Vegas, an irrigation box, and honey the color of a green traffic light.
We've done this work long enough to know that bee colonies can still surprise us. This one proved it.
Betsy Lewis & Pete Rizzo
🐝 Las Vegas’s All-Natural Live Bee Removal Team
About Us: The Authors
We’re Betsy Lewis and Pete Rizzo, Beekeepers on a Mission in Las Vegas
We’re not just in the bee business, we’re in the bee-saving business. Trained by a master beekeeper and backed by hundreds of successful removals, we rescue and relocate honey bees with care and precision.
If bees have moved into your wall, yard, or block wall, our live bee removal covers Las Vegas, Henderson, Summerlin, North Las Vegas, Boulder City, and the rest of Clark County. A cluster hanging from a tree or fence is a job for our bee swarm removal, and if you’re not sure what you’re dealing with, see how our free bee removal works.
Every swarm we save and every hive we manage reflects our deep love for the bees. At our Joshua Tree Preserve, we care for dozens of thriving hives, some wild, some honey-bearing, all part of our commitment to ethical, sustainable beekeeping.
Why Vegas Bees? Because We Never Stop Learning or Caring
Beekeeping keeps evolving, and so do we. We keep up our education, compare notes with fellow beekeepers, and refine our techniques so bees and people both come out ahead.
We also support the beekeeping community with high-quality beekeeping supplies. If you’re ready to suit up and start your own journey, we’ve got what you need.
