The Daily Populous Thursday May 2nd, 2024 night edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by washedFM

A toddler told her mom that “monsters” were in her closet. But in fact, there were more than 50,000 bees there.

A mother of three children under four years old was met with a “terrifying” surprise after she and her husband investigated why a handful of bees had flown into the attic of the couple’s North Carolina home.

After a visit by a pest control company and multiple beekeepers, a thermal camera finally revealed where the bees had gone – to a massive hive they had built inside the wall of her daughter’s room, where the girl was convinced she had heard a monster of some kind lurking.

“At first, I thought it was a body,” Ashley Massis Class told People magazine recently. “I was like, ‘What is that?’ And he says he thinks it’s a hive.”

For roughly eight months, a swarm of honeybees had been building a hive inside the wall of her daughter’s room.

The beekeeper “didn’t even have his bee gear on yet, but he took a hammer and knocked into the wall”, Massis Class recalled. “Bees came swarming out like a horror movie.

“There were streams of bees, and the wall where he hit was oozing honey. But it looked like blood because it was really, really dark, running down my daughter’s pink walls. It looked really strange.”

Beekeepers ultimately removed tens of thousands of bees over several extractions, and a honeycomb weighing more than 100lb.

The bees were relocated to a bee sanctuary. Massis Class first documented the experience on TikTok, where her story went viral and caught the attention of news outlets.

After the extractions, Massis Class reassured her daughter that “Mr Monster Hunter”, as the toddler called the beekeeper, was removing all the bees. She also reassured her daughter that, after many months, the family now believed her.

There was, in fact, a kind of monster in her wall.

skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to First Thing Free daily newsletter Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion

In addition to the work to remove the bees, there will also be repairs to Massis Class’s home. The bees and their oozing honey caused about $20,000 worth of damage to electrical wires, which the family homeowner’s insurance will not cover.

The timing of their bee encounter was a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, Massis Class and her husband had a baby before discovering the bees.

Yet Massis Class told People that meant the couple was on leave from work.

“I’m really thankful my husband and I are on leave right now and that we can deal with this situation,” she remarked. “But at the same time, hearing the sound of humming bees on the other side of a door is kind of terrifying.”

paulmclaughlin on May 1st, 2024 at 14:21 UTC »

It's like 50,000 bees when all you need is a knife

ansiz on May 1st, 2024 at 14:08 UTC »

This reminds me of when I lived in a house where bees moved into a gap between the chimney and the interior wall of the house. We started randomly finding bees in the house and if you hit the wall in the right place you could hear buzzing throughout the living room.

We ended up having a bee guy come to the house and he put a hive on the roof. I think he ended up getting multiple colonies of bees out of the house, he didn't even charge us for it since he was thrilled about the free bees.

C_The_Bear on May 1st, 2024 at 13:33 UTC »

> The bees and their oozing honey caused about $20,000 worth of damage to electrical wires, which the family homeowner’s insurance will not cover.

Ahhhh! Real monsters