Toddler Heard ‘Monsters’ in the Wall. It Was About 50,000 Bees and 100 Pounds of Honeycomb

Saylor was three. She kept pointing at the wall by her closet. The family had been watching Monsters, Inc. Her parents handed her a spray bottle of water and called it monster spray. That went on for about eight months in a century-old Charlotte farmhouse. Then Ashley Massis Class put a thermal camera on the wall. The orange blob was a hive. The hole in the drywall was a horror movie. About 50,000 honeybees had come in through a dime-size gap near the chimney and worked their way down into the toddler’s room.

@chaosinthecarolinas

Ashley brought in beekeeper Curtis Collins instead of a can of poison. The extraction took three visits. Day one: roughly 20,000 bees and more than 100 pounds of comb, triple-bagged because the honey was blowing out the plastic. There was another cluster, with a queen, still in the walls. Collins hunted the queen so the colony could be moved alive. When they were gone the floorboards were a sticky sheet. Night terrors stopped. Saylor looked at Collins and said he was not a beekeeper. He was a monster hunter. Homeowner’s insurance called it pest damage and walked. Ashley put the repairs, wiring, and cleanup north of $20,000 out of pocket.

The AEGIS Alliance covered another Southern house-versus-wildlife file when Kayak Katie started commuting through gators to take out the trash. More of this beat is in Odd News.