Nearly half a million bees removed from walls of Pennsylvania home
The Weaver family of Pennsylvania is out about $12,000 after paying to remove nearly half a million honeybees from inside the walls of their 150-year-old farmhouse, CNN reports.
They bought the home in December, and the previous owner disclosed the bees were there. The Weavers say they were unconcerned - until spring hit, and they started to become active.
"On the seller's disclosure it said 'bees in wall' and that was it and I think because one, we didn't see them and two, we were just so floored that we actually found land in the (school) district that was within our price range that I didn't really ask any questions about those bees," Sara Weaver told CNN.
"I didn't think it would be that big of an issue. It didn't even cross my mind but when spring arrived that's when we started to see them."
The 450,000 bees had been there for around 35 years. The reason the colony grew so large could be because the previous owner of the home hadn't been living on the premises for some time.
It took a general contractor and a beekeeper about a week to safely remove the bees in a painstaking process that involved gently removing the tiles of the building and locating the queen.
The bees have since been rehomed to the beekeeper's farm.
Now that it's all sorted, the Weavers say they've learned a costly lesson: No matter how good a deal on a property appears to be, it's always a good idea to get it inspected, something they admit they should have done.
