When Andrew Noyes and his husband recently bought a house in San Francisco in September, it did not cross their minds that the new home would also be the home of a large beehive in the ceiling. According to Insider, he began suspecting a beehive was located in the ceiling after discovering not only live bees buzzing away in their home, but also bee carcasses. Noyes reports that there had also been “substantial bee activity” outside of their home as well.
When you suspect a beehive in the ceiling, you call an apiarist who shows up with a thermal imaging device, a stethoscope & a drill. To be(e) continued… ???? #newhome pic.twitter.com/0HUsQSXCVl
— Andrew Noyes (@anoyes) October 2, 2021
After hearing raindrop-like noises from the ceiling, Noyes and his husband decided to have someone look into it. On Twitter, he posted that he called a specialist with a “thermal imaging device, a stethoscope, and a drill.” This was when the beehive was discovered in the ceiling. Noyes continued to document this strange experience on Twitter in several posts over the weekend. The hive was found from the thermal imaging device, as it detects heat given off from the hive and swarm of bees. After removing parts of the ceiling, the beekeeper found the hive and explained that it was most likely there previous to Noyes moving in and suspected it had died out. The remaining bees were robber bees, whose main purpose is to steal the remaining honey for their hives from the abandoned hive.
Noyes posted a vacuum that was made to remove the bees in a safe and humane way. Amazingly, the original hive produced an estimated amount of 1oo pounds of honey during the peak. To remove the hive, the beekeeper brought in an additional worker for assistance. Noyes was even given a souvenir and reports on Twitter that “the hive extraction filled a large compost bin and now I don’t want to think about bees anymore.”
Here’s a close up of the hive. The beekeeper said it could have had as much as 100lb of honey inside it at one point… and many many many bees
???? ???? ???? pic.twitter.com/8wGUdM8TFQ— Andrew Noyes (@anoyes) October 4, 2021
The extraction, which costed $500, was eventually a success as Noyes reported that he had spotted a few robber bees remaining, who seemed to look confused and trying to enter the home where the hive used to exist.
Good morning and happy Monday! Here’s a photo of a special vacuum made for humanely sucking up bees. After his initial investigative work was inconclusive, the beekeeper won’t be sure of what he’ll find until he opens up the ceiling… ???? pic.twitter.com/5Glh6vQWpm
— Andrew Noyes (@anoyes) October 4, 2021
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