Our Story

Steve Downs started seeing the world through two lenses early on: as an artist and as a beekeeper. Both taught him the same thing, that small, living things deserve to be handled with care. Over twenty years working in and around Los Angeles, he built a practice that reflects both of those instincts. Beecasso is the name he gave it: part of his art, part of his life's work.

Early in his career, the industry standard was extermination. A call comes in, bees get killed, everyone moves on. Steve saw enough of that to know there was a better way, and enough living colonies to believe they were worth the extra effort. The shift wasn't just technical. It was a decision about what kind of beekeeper he wanted to be. Live relocation became his approach. Not because it was easier, it isn't, but because it was right.

The breakthrough was the queen. A colony follows its queen wherever she goes. When Steve developed the technique to identify and capture her first, the rest of the bees would follow her out, calmly, intact, alive. He spent years refining the approach. Now it's the cornerstone of every removal he does. We strive to find the queen so the colony follows her out. That's the standard. That's what separates a Beecasso job from a conventional one.

In 2024, Universal Pictures was producing Twisters when a hive of roughly 50,000 bees moved onto their lot. They called Steve. He moved the entire colony off the production site, safely, without incident. Universal Pictures granted Beecasso permission to display their logo as a work credit. It was one job. It was also proof that the scale Steve operates at isn't limited to attics and backyards.

From Malibu to Anaheim, across two decades of calls, Steve's territory covers Los Angeles and Orange County. The range of situations he's handled spans the complicated, the urgent, and the genuinely beautiful. Some of his clients have become advocates. Actress and filmmaker Diane Keaton, pictured with Steve at one of his removals, said it plainly: "He's my idea of a hero!" That kind of endorsement stays with you. Not because of who said it, but because of how much it meant.

When a colony is successfully relocated, it doesn't just disappear. Steve tends private bee sanctuaries across Los Angeles where those bees go on to live, pollinate, and produce. They become part of the ecosystem instead of a casualty of it. Every removal is a chance to add to that story. Every colony that makes it out alive represents a choice that didn't have to be made, but was. As Steve puts it: our goal is to save as many colonies as possible, and we strive to the best of our ability.