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A Florida couple recently said goodbye to some uninvited house guests: as many as 80,000 honeybee colonies occupying the shower walls.
Colony size, St. It stunned even professional beekeeper Elisha Bixler, whom Stefanie and Dan Graham of St.
“There was honey everywhere: the walls, the floor, my shoes, doorknobs,” Ms Bixler said in an interview Wednesday. “I had to pull the wall down to the nails to get the whole comb out.”
When he removed the seven-foot-long hive in early November after removing the bathroom tiles, he estimated it had around 80,000 bees and 100 pounds of honey. The discovery was previously reported by the Tampa Bay television station. fox 13.
Miss Bixler, 38, how was your day honey He said he had to put up plastic wraps to try to control the mess.
Knowing that something was wrong, the Grahams contacted Ms. Bixler in October. This wasn’t the family’s first bee event in their three-story timber-framed beach house sitting on pillars.
Two to three years ago, Ms. Graham said Wednesday that her husband ripped open the wall in the same bathroom and pulled out a giant hive. Since then, they’ve had work on their roofs, and Ms Graham said she’s left some holes that are a gateway for the bees to come back from.
The couple, their two children and two Danes had learned to coexist with their guests, despite the occasional bee sting.
“We both really love nature and we love bees,” said Ms. Graham. We said, ‘We’ll leave you alone. Leave us alone.’ They were beautiful bees. So we said, ‘Sure, go ahead, live in our shower’.”
But Ms. Graham, 41, a high school English teacher who works part-time in real estate, said life must end as the family decides to renovate the bathroom.
Ms Bixler said she is more used to removing hives from roofs, sheds or trees.
“This is my first shower cleaning,” Ms. Bixler said on Wednesday.
Ms Bixler said that when she arrived at the family’s home on November 2, she took out her reliable thermal detector gun, which measures heat, and pointed it at the shower wall. He showed the temperature to be around 96 degrees, which he said was typical for a hive.
“As soon as I saw where they were, I started breaking the tile and revealing this huge two-metre hive,” he said. “Most of them honey.”
Ms Bixler warned the Grahams that they might want to scare themselves out while removing the bees, which she said takes more than five hours at a cost of $800, which is not covered by insurance.
“She came to the bathroom about halfway through and had a look,” Ms Bixler said of Ms. Graham.
Ms. Graham said her family was not afraid. “I know a lot of people will go crazy,” he said.
At first, Bixler, who has been a professional beekeeper for three years, said she only wore a veil to protect herself from bees. But a few people wore extra protective gear that included gloves and boots after stinging it.
By eliminating the bees, he finally discovered the queen bee, whose abdomen was twice the size of a normal bee. He put the queen in a protective cage and placed her in a box with the other bees.
“This ensures that all the bees get into the box with it,” said Ms. Bixler. “He wants to go back to his wall. He thinks this is his home.”
He used a special vacuum to remove some of the strays in the hive.
Robert Page Jr., an emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California at Davis, said Wednesday that scents from the previous bee colony will likely attract new bees to the shower wall.
Professor Page, author of The Art of the Bee: Shapeping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies, said there are major drawbacks to looking for someone to remove bees from a colony. He said bees can damage drywall, and honey can ferment, causing odors that can attract ants.
“We love honeybees, but not when they’re on your wall,” said the professor, who has also taught at Arizona State University.
Miss Bixler, the rescued and St. He saved most of the honey he said he fed to the bees he kept on his small urban farm in St. The Grahams kept some of the honey for themselves.
“I just told them you have the option to bite that comb or you can put it in a colander and squeeze out the honey,” Ms Bixler said.
Bixler said he rehabilitated the bees he saved and placed them in apiaries.
Ms. Graham said she’s read a lot of historical stories about people talking to bees about milestones in their lives. tell the bees. He also said that he became a whisperer to bees, including when his guests were leaving.
“I said goodbye to the bees,” he said, “and they’re going to buy a new home.”
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