A huge colony of bees has caused a stir in Inverness after around 180,000 bees were found inside the roof of a house. It is believed that bees had been living on top of the plasterboard ceiling of an empty room for many years. BBC According to the report, the grandchildren of the owner of the house reported hearing a buzzing sound at night.
Three colonies were found in the house, each containing 60,000 bees. Beekeeper Andrew Card of the Loch Ness Honey Company was called in to transfer the swarm to temporary hives. The colonies will be monitored for parasites for the next few weeks before they are used for honey production next year.
Mr Card posted a short video on social media, showing the sheer size of the hive and explaining the work ahead.
Watch the video here:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8meyektqaa/
Press and Journal Speaking to , Mr Card said the first colony is about seven years old, while the other two were built in recent years. He says this is the biggest so far. He said: ‘The man was doing some repair work on his roof and knew there might be bees in it, but he saw a swarm going into the bathroom so he thought it needed to be looked at, so he called us. .’
With the help of a thermal imaging camera, the beekeeper located the bees, although he admits that what was under the plasterboard was much larger than he expected.
He said, “It was much bigger than I expected. There were between 150,000 and 180,000 bees. A good colony at this time of year has 50,000 bees, so it was a bit high.”
Card speculates that the bees chose the site because of its size, as the flat-roofed property lacked insulation, providing a capacity of up to 40 litres.
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