Beehive State nickname turns literal as honey bee colonies invade Utah houses

Something is a-buzzing in Utah and it isn't the industrious workers of the Beehive State.

It's bees.

A colony of 40,000 bees living within the bedroom wall, in the case of a couple in Provo, Utah, who had their honey-making friends relocated on Saturday, according to KSL News. Tyler Judd and his wife told the news station they were sitting on the couch one night when they heard the walls buzzing.

This is the second reported case this spring of a bee colony moving into a Utah home. Associated Press reported the discovery of 60,000 bees thriving in the rafters of a home in the town of Eden. They called in help before the house began to leak honey.

A couple in Ontario couldn't say the same when cracks in the ceiling of their home in Varney began to drip honey onto their heads last summer, according to QMI Agency.

Scientists have worried about missing honey bees in the United States recently, as populations decline due to factors including pesticides, disease and lack of nutrition, according to a recent report by the Department of Agriculture.

"The funny thing with hives is the ones that beekeepers have in their boxes seem to be dying across the county, all over, 60 per cent since last fall. Yet the ones in homes are doing fantastic," the beekeeper helping the Judd family, Al Chubak, told KSL News.

We found the bees.

At least, these homeowners have helped to save a few, along with a tree-surgeon in the United Kingdom who recently spent his day relocating a colony that was living inside of a tree he needed to cut down, according to the local newspaper, the Ellesmere Port Pioneer.

Bee relocation is tricky business but it sure beats living with bats, like the new resident of a Saskatoon apartment who discovered the walls were filled with bats after moving in this spring, according to the National Post.

Apparently they make terrible roommates.