A gigantic beehive, swarming with thousands of bees, was removed from a tree at a family’s home in Orlando, Flordia.
The bees were relocated elsewhere and the hive was melted down, according to ABC News. A beekeeper said that as many as 80,000 bees were housed in the mammoth hive.
Jason Deeringer, a beekeeper and owner of Bee Serious LLC, said he removed the beehive on Thursday.
“The owner of the property said this was the third beehive in the same spot,” Deeringer told the broadcaster. “They let it grow and started to get nervous as it got too big.”
Deeringer removed the honeycombs piece by piece before placing the bees in a box for relocation. He said he was forced to remove the queen bee and replace her with a new one.
“We can melt it down and turn it into a brick and sell it to a bigger beekeeper or candle company,” Deeringer said of the wax.
He said the bees never attacked anyone and stung the owner of the house twice.
“To have a feral or wild colony is pretty risky. It’s a liability risk because you can’t control the behavior of a wild colony,” Deeringer added. “But to have a managed colony is not dangerous.”
In a recent study, it was discovered that bees can also get addicted to caffeine.
“We describe a novel way in which some plants, through the action of a secondary compound like caffeine that is present in nectar, may be tricking the honey bee by securing loyal and faithful foraging and recruitment behaviors, perhaps without providing the best quality forage,” said Margaret Couvillon of the University of Sussex earlier this month, per Eurekalert.
“The effect of caffeine is akin to drugging, where the honey bees are tricked into valuing the forage as a higher quality than it really is,” added Roger Schürch, with the University of Sussex and the University of Bern. “The duped pollinators forage and recruit accordingly.”
