In most Arizona HOA communities the boundary is simple in principle and messy in practice. A colony inside your lot or your structure is yours. A colony in common area, a shared amenity or a tree the association maintains is the association’s. The arguments happen on the boundary itself, and what settles them is the plat and the recorded governing documents. Putting the request in writing does not decide who is responsible, but it is what gets the question answered.
Master planned communities cover a large share of the Phoenix metro, so this comes up constantly. Here is how it actually works and how to get it moving.
Where the line usually sits
| Where the colony is | Usually whose |
|---|---|
| Inside your home’s wall, roof, soffit or chimney | Yours |
| A tree on your lot | Yours |
| Your patio structure, shed or pool equipment | Yours |
| A perimeter block wall that is community owned | The association |
| A shared wall between two lots | Depends on the governing documents |
| Common area landscaping, greenbelt or park tree | The association |
| Pool house, ramada, mailbox kiosk, guardhouse | The association |
| A wall that is on your lot but faces common area | Usually yours, but check for a recorded maintenance easement |
The last row is a frequent source of disputes. Facing a common area does not by itself make a structure common property. It is not quite absolute, though: theme walls and view fences in Valley master planned communities often sit on the lot but are subject to a recorded association maintenance easement, which can put the maintenance obligation on the association even though the wall is yours. Ownership and responsibility are what the plat and the governing documents say, not what the wall looks out onto.
What Arizona law actually requires
Most of these communities are planned communities: individual lots, perimeter block walls, greenbelts, ramadas, all tied together by a recorded declaration. They are governed by the Arizona Planned Communities Act, A.R.S. §§ 33-1801 to 33-1818. That Act sets out how an association operates, but it does not impose a general duty on the association to maintain common area. Where that duty exists, it comes from the recorded declaration and the CC&Rs. That is why the answer to “does the HOA have to deal with it” starts with reading the documents rather than the statute.
Condominiums are a different regime. Under the Arizona Condominium Act, A.R.S. § 33-1247(A), the association is required to maintain, repair and replace the common elements. If you own a condominium unit rather than a lot in a planned community, that statutory duty is a stronger starting point than anything a planned community declaration gives you.
So the first thing to establish is which regime you are in. A lot with your own yard and a shared perimeter wall is usually a planned community. A unit in a building with shared structure is usually a condominium. The recorded declaration will say which, and the terms follow from it: common area in a planned community, common elements in a condominium.
Why HOA communities get more of these calls
Two features of master planned developments in the Valley make them attractive to bees.
Perimeter block walls. Miles of them, with hollow cells, weep holes, open pilaster caps and, frequently, damaged or missing caps. A block wall cavity is an excellent bee cavity and the community owns a great deal of it.
Consistent construction. When four hundred houses go up in three years to the same specification, they share the same eave detail, the same vent type and the same soffit return. If that detail is attractive to bees, it is attractive on all four hundred. That is why a single community often produces clusters of calls in the same season.
The second point is worth raising with a board, because it turns a series of individual removals into a case for a preventive exclusion program across the common area. The same bee proofing measures that work on one house work on a run of block wall.
How to get it moving
Photograph it and note the date. A photograph of the entry point with something for scale, plus the date you first noticed it, does more than any amount of description.
Report it in writing. Not a phone call to a neighbour on the board, and not a comment at a meeting. An email or a portal ticket, so there is a record with a date on it. That record is what moves most stalled cases, and it is what you will need if the matter goes further.
Say what you are asking for. “There is a bee colony in the block wall behind lot 44, at the third pilaster from the gate, and I am asking the association to arrange removal” is actionable. “There are bees everywhere” is not.
Note the safety context if it applies. Proximity to a path, a playground, a pool gate or a mail kiosk changes the priority. So does a known sting allergy in a household nearby.
In Maricopa County a feral colony should be assumed Africanized unless a lab says otherwise. Day to day that changes little about what you see, since the bees forage and come and go like any other honey bees. The difference is how strongly the colony responds when it is disturbed, and in a community setting the disturbances are routine ones: landscaping crews with mowers and blowers, work on the wall itself, children and pets close to the entrance. Anyone with a known sting allergy should stay away from the area entirely. Multiple stings, or any difficulty breathing, swelling spreading beyond the sting site, or faintness, is a 911 call.
Ask about the timeline, not just the decision. Colonies grow. A decision in six weeks is materially worse than a decision in one.
If it is on your lot
Then it is yours to arrange, and the useful things to know are that the comb has to come out rather than just the bees, that the entry point needs closing afterwards, and that in a community built to one specification your neighbours very likely have the same opening on their house. Our general guide to what to know about bee removal in Phoenix covers what the work itself looks like.
Some associations require architectural approval for exterior work, which can extend to visible repairs after a removal. Worth checking before rather than after.
If it is common area and nothing happens
Escalate in writing, in order. Property manager first, then the board, then a formal written request referencing the governing documents and the safety issue.
If that runs out of road, Arizona gives owners a route that does not require a civil lawsuit. You can petition against the association through the Arizona Department of Real Estate HOA dispute process under A.R.S. § 32-2199 et seq. The petition is heard by an administrative law judge, the association has to respond, and it exists as an alternative to filing in superior court. For a homeowner who has documented the colony, put the request in writing and been ignored, that is usually the most useful thing to know.
Where a colony presents a genuine hazard, the referral in Maricopa County is to Maricopa County Environmental Services, Vector Control, which investigates feral bee complaints and works out who the responsible party is. They investigate and direct; the removal itself stays with a private company. And no company can work on property without the owner’s authorisation. In common area that authorisation comes from the association and not from an individual resident, however reasonable the request.
What we need before we can work
This is the part that surprises people. We cannot treat or remove a colony on land you do not control, even if the bees are in your yard all day. The authorisation question sits in front of any of the bee removal work itself.
For a common area colony we need instruction from whoever is authorised to give it, which is normally the management company or the board. Homeowners frequently arrange this themselves by getting the manager to email us directly, and that is usually the fastest path.
Frequently asked questions
The bees are from the common area wall but they are in my yard. Whose problem is it?
The structure holding the colony is what determines responsibility. Foraging range does not transfer it. If the colony is in a community wall, it is a community matter.
That does not leave you with nothing to do in the meantime. Keep people and pets away from the wall and out of the flight line, and keep children and anyone with a known sting allergy out of that part of the yard entirely. Turn off any drip line, hose bib or water feature near the entry point, since a nearby water source keeps traffic heavy. Do not run a mower, string trimmer or blower close to the wall, because vibration and noise near a colony is what provokes it. Do not spray it, and do not block the hole. Both leave you with a more defensive colony and the same problem.
Can I just pay for it myself to get it done?
You can, with the association’s written permission to work on their property. Without that permission you are sending contractors onto land you have no right to work on, which is trespass, and the liability sits with you for whatever follows: damage to the wall or the landscaping, an injured neighbour, an injured worker, and responsibility for putting right anything that goes wrong. Written permission moves all of that to where it belongs.
Does the association have to remove it?
It depends on the regime and on the documents. In a planned community the Planned Communities Act imposes no general maintenance duty, so any obligation to deal with a colony in common area has to come from the recorded declaration and the CC&Rs. In a condominium, A.R.S. § 33-1247(A) requires the association to maintain the common elements, which is a stronger position to argue from. Either way, an established colony beside a walkway is a reasonable safety argument, and the documents are the thing to read first.
What about a shared wall between two lots?
That depends on how the plat and the documents treat it. Some are party walls with shared responsibility, some sit wholly on one lot. Check before assuming.
Should the association do anything preventive?
In a community with a lot of block wall, closing open pilaster caps and damaged cells is a defined, one time scope of work that a crew can complete in a pass along a run, rather than an open ended sequence of individual removals season after season. It is the kind of thing a board can plan once and benefit from for years.
The short version
Ownership of the structure decides it, not what the structure faces or where the bees fly. Photograph it, report it in writing with a date and a location, and say what you are asking for. And if your community is producing several of these a season, the answer is not more removals, it is closing the openings the builder left in all of them.
