Colony of 40,000 bees found inside bedroom wall


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PROVO — A Provo couple will sleep a little more soundly after a beekeeper removes a hive of tens of thousands of bees from inside their bedroom wall Saturday.

Tyler Judd and his wife moved into their home in Provo five months ago. They first noticed bees outside his home, then, late one night, he and his wife could hear them buzzing inside the walls.

"We were just sitting on our couch, turned off the TV and could hear some buzzing in the walls," Judd said.

They called in a beekeeper, who located a colony of about 40,000 bees in the wall of the Judd's master bedroom Friday.

The colony, said beekeeper Al Chubak, was causing bigger trouble to the home than just building their hive, as it was sending swarms to further colonize the area and removing insulation from the home's interior. He estimated the beehive had been there for three to four years.

"They're actually taking the insulation out and they're putting their honeycomb and their hive in its place," Judd said.

Saturday, Chubak removed the bees with a shopvac and put the honeycomb into boxes to relocate. Chubak said he needed to remove the entire hive, rather than kill the bees, to prevent this from happening again. As he put it, if you leave the hive, you "left their pantry, you left their bedding, you left their sofa and they just move right back in."

"The funny thing with hives is the ones that beekeepers have in their boxes seem to be dying across the county, all over 60 percent since last fall. Yet the ones in homes are doing fantastic," Chubak said.

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