Massive bee hive in Long Island home
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Location: Long Island, New York
Un-bee-lievable! Long Island couple living with monster hive of 120,000 bees
Quote:
And you thought your roommates were pests.
A Long Island couple is living with what may be the state’s biggest indoor honeybee colony ever — a 7.5-foot-tall, 120,000-strong monster hive that can’t be removed for months.
“You can hear them buzzing through the wall,’” said Nicholas Sarro, a 68-year-old retired teacher. “They stay in their part of house and we stay in ours.”
Sarro and his wife spotted the stingers swarming near the chimney of their two-story colonial home in East Islip and called the NYPD’s former bee expert, Anthony “Tony Bees” Planakis, in September to investigate.
Using an infrared gadget to see through a bedroom wall, Planakis captured an image of the jaw-dropping bee-hemoth lodged between the brick chimney and the frame of the house.
“I felt like I hit the mother load,” Planakis said. “It was like the Normandy invasion.”
Planakis and Sarro were both stunned. “His eyes nearly popped out of his sockets,” Planakis said.
It’s by far the biggest hive Planakis — who has worked with bees for more than four decades — has ever seen, he said. Past reports show a larger one has never been reported at a home in New York.
He estimates the sweet discovery had been growing for up to seven years, and that there’s more than 70 pounds of honey inside.
But Planakis has no plans to remove the colony until April when flowers bloom and the bees have more incentive to leave and “forage,” he said.
He’ll use a grinding wheel, a crow bar and other tools to remove the colony, then donate the insects to beekeepers. All told, the project will likely cost around $1,000, Sarro said.
Sarro’s 1938 abode likely attracted the insects because it’s not insulated, and over the years, the brick chimney pulled away from the mortar — creating a cozy nook for honey making.
“It’s the perfect bee box,” Sarro explained.
Enlarge ImageTony Planakis removes a bee hive in Queens in 2016.
Tony Planakis removes a bee hive in Queens in 2016.Roy Renna
He said his winged roommates don’t fly into his home, and can only be seen swarming from outside. They have quieted down in recent weeks because they are hibernating for the winter, he said.
“When guests come to stay with us, we say, ‘You’re staying in the bee room, and they don’t mind,” he said. “I told my friends ‘grab your honey jars!”
For now, he has no fear about co-habitating with 120,000 stingers.
“I’d be more worried if they were roaches,” he said.
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