June 16, 2008

Where have all the bees gone ?


With all the talk about the U.S. bee population declining one North Carolina couple has more bees than they can use...

When a sticky substance was found on a wall, one of the owners stuck his finger in it and tasted it - and discovered it was honey.

WYFF4.com News
Concord, NC
June 15, 2008

60,000 Bees Removed From Inside N.C. Home

Homeowner Says Walls Ooze Honey
One Concord, N.C., homeowner said his walls ooze honey and his house is a hive to thousands of bees.

Older homes are expected to have some problems, but Mark Jones’ 100-year-old house has more than 60,000 of them.

Jones and his wife, Amychelle, said they can sum it up in one word: insanity. On Sunday, they found a way to deal with the bees.

Beekeepers removed 60,000 bees from the Joneses' home Sunday morning, leaving about 1,000 still buzzing inside.

Jones said it wasn’t a bee sting or the buzzing sound that tipped him off; it was a stain on the wall downstairs.

“I came over here and dipped my finger in it and tasted it,” Jones said. “Sure enough, it was honey coming out of the wall.”

Jones took home video of the beekeepers as they tore down the walls to carefully collect the hives with a vacuum. They were put into three buckets and will be taken away and cared for.

“It didn’t seem right to my husband or myself to kill them,” Amychelle Jones said.

Some of the thousands of bees could be seen outside the home sticking around. The beekeepers said they’ll eventually find a new home.

“There’s no hive,” they said. “There’s no queen bee, so they’ll find their way out.” In the next few days, the remaining bees are expected to fly off.

The beekeepers were only stung by four of the 60,000 during the removal process. Original article...

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