HOME 'SWEET' HOME
Family finds thousands of bees have infested their home when HONEY drips from the walls
A FAMILY was in for a sweet surprise when they found honey dripping from inside the walls of their home on Saturday.
Andrea and Justin Isabell have lived in a 100-year-old house in , for the past five years, and recently learned the house has a massive .
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The couple they haven’t had any issues with the house, aside from regular repairs.
on Friday, Andrea said she noticed streams coming down the walls of the home’s mudroom, which they suspected was water damage.
But it turns out the suspected streams of water turned out to be fresh honey.
"We've never heard any buzzing or anything," Andrea told CNN. "When we saw the stream coming down the wall, we just kind of worked our way up."
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She : "My husband felt this really sticky, syrupy stuff — we were brave and smelled it and he said, 'This is honey! This is honey pouring down our walls.’”
The family was able to figure out that the honeybees were entering through an opening on the roof of the house.
“I thought, 'There we go, there's their front door.'”
Her husband, Justin, posted a satirical “homeowner’s tutorial” about figuring out whether you have an issue with bees at home.
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“We noticed these streaks coming down our wall and could not figure out what it was, so… with a very careful lick… yup, that’s honey.”
Andrea said the family had seen a rogue bee every now and then in the attic, but didn’t think twice about it.
She said they’ve seen the honey streams drip from the attic, through the second story of the house, through the main floor, and to the basement.
The Isabells called Allan Lattanzi, a general contractor and experienced beekeeper, who estimated the colony of bees has 20,000 to 30,000 of the beneficial insects.
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"I think water got into the colony and washed the nectar out of the comb and made it more liquified and that's what was running down the wall," he told CNN.
Andrea said her three sons were “wondering if we could set a tap up so we could just pour honey on our in the morning.”
“I wish we could,” she said. “I wish we could share it, but they need a better home where they're safe and happy and not living with us.”
She explained to CNN that they “know bees are endangered.”
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“We want to be able to save the colony and rehome them appropriately and carefully, but the damage done to the house to extract it was concerning.”
Lattanzi was scheduled on Monday to remove the bee colony from the family’s home, after an assessment on Sunday that estimated roughly $3,000 in repairs.
"Right now, I feel mostly safe because the bees haven't gained access inside so they're just doing their thing and they're high up on the roof," the mom said.
"No one has been stung, so I guess that's why I feel confident and calm."
Lattanzi, known as “The Bee Man,” told WPVI: "The bees become my girls.”
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"I will take them home and they will become a honey producer for me. I will make a colony."
Honeybees are crucial to the world's food supply, but they've been threatened in recent years by mites, diseases, pesticides, and a loss of food.
But in June, the Bee Informed Partnership’s annual survey of thousands of beekeepers found they had bounced back in the past year after experiencing the second smallest winter loss in the 14 years of surveying done by several different US universities.
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