Woman finds home is also a hive

Published 12:36 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

NORTH BEND – For nearly two months, Melissa Morrison lived happily with a hum in her kitchen she thought was the refrigerator.

Then, earlier this week, she tripped and smacked the wall. The hum grew noticeably angry.

That’s when the 33-year-old North Bend resident realized she was sharing her rental apartment with a few thousand bees.

“That humming you hear is NOT the refrigerator,” she said last week, squashing errant honeybees as they escaped into her kitchen.

Morrison has nothing against bees – preferably they’re out pollinating the garden. But with a house guest who’s allergic to bee stings, she contacted a wasp removal expert who referred her to a man who removes bee swarms for free.

The bee man arrived July 25 when Morrison was at work as a licensed care giver, however. And the result wasn’t pretty.

The man sawed a rectangle in the interior wall, knocking the hole straight through the exterior brick. He encased the 6-foot kitchen gash in plastic, took what he said was the queen bee, sprayed the nest with insecticide and left, saying the rest of the bees would die in three or four days.

For the complete story, pick up a copy of this week’s Valley Record