Tens of thousands of bees found living in a Maine family’s farmhouse

By Ashley R. Williams, CNN

(CNN) — The tens of thousands of bees removed from a Maine farmhouse this week had caused quite a buzz there for decades, according to the family who’s lived on the farm since the 18th century.

An estimated 40,000 bees were taken from the walls of a farmhouse at Smiling Hill Farm in Westbrook, Maine, according to CNN affiliate WMTW. The Knight family has managed the farmland since 1720, according to the farm’s website.

“Marsha Knight … claims that those honey bees or other honey bees have been in that wall void ever since she was a young girl,” said Andrew MacDonald, owner of Bee Huggah, the company that removed the bees from the farmhouse, in a video posted to Facebook.

Maine is home to more than 270 bee species, according to the University of Maine.

“For 60-plus years, there’s been bees in this house and it might be longer than that. It might be 70 or 80,” said Marsha’s brother, Michael Knight, according to WMTW.

MacDonald’s September 13 video clip showed a large cluster of busy bees moving inside an exposed yellow wall at the farmhouse before their removal last week. From another view, the bees can be seen buzzing into and out of the farmhouse from the outside, the clip shows.

Instead of killing the bees, the Knight family wanted to save the colony living in the farmhouse, which needs renovation, so they requested MacDonald’s services, WMTW reported.

“I believe that these bees are worth saving for a number of different reasons,” MacDonald told WMTW. “They have medicinal value and they pollinate our crops.”

MacDonald relocated the bees to a beehive box outside the farmhouse, where they’re getting adjusted to their new home, he shared in a Facebook clip Friday.

The Knight family said they plan to maintain the outdoor hive and the bees will be later relocated elsewhere on the farm, according to WMTW.

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