Couple discover home is site of huge beehive as honey starts dripping down walls
A couple discovered their house had become the site of a giant beehive after honey started dripping down their walls.
Kate Dempsey, 41, noticed some dark patches in her home in Folkestone, Kent, and initially dismissed them as damp.
But after smelling something sweet, she decided to pull up the floorboards - where she discovered six-foot pieces honeycomb and litres of honey.
Kate, who works as a diversity and inclusion advisor, said she was in disbelief after discovering the "huge" beehive.
She said: "We'd never seen anything like it. The sheer volume of the hive was huge.
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"We kept cutting these floorboards away and more and more honeycomb kept appearing.
Kate Dempsey with her husband Andrew (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)"The smell hit you immediately. It was this sweet stench and we had this really sickly smell for ages - [I just felt] disbelief really."
Kate was quoted up to £10,000 when she tried to find a company to clean up all the honeycomb - so she decided to tackle the problem herself with the help of her husband Andrew Dempsey, 42, and some friends.
They donned rubber gloves to scoop the sticky honey out, removing huge amounts - but while doing that, a swarm of "robber bees" swooped in to try and claim the sweet stuff for themselves.
Maggots and moths were also found on the floor, Kate said.
They made the discovery after removing the floorboards (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)
Kate said they found huge six-foot pieces of honeycomb and litres of honey (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)She added: "It all started in the really hot summer last year. We noticed black sticky stuff coming down our bedroom wall.
"It got to the point where we couldn't ignore it anymore. I smelt it and tasted it and it was honey. I didn't have any idea what was going on.
"We'd spotted bees when we first moved in but they disappeared, and we'd had the house repainted.
Kate, Andrew, Phoebe and Esme Dempse at home (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)"I went to our daughter's room which is above ours and pulled back the carpet. These massive maggots started crawling out of the floorboards.
"We decided we were going to pull up the floorboards and see what was going on. We found an old hive and it was almost composting, loads of moths were coming out.
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"We started pulling more and more, there just seemed to be no end, it was absolutely disgusting.
Kate initially dismissed the dark patches as damp (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)
They were quoted £10,000 to clear out the area, so they decided to solve the issue by themselves (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)"We pulled up this massive six-foot honeycomb. When we were in the middle of [clearing it out], we woke up one morning and the room was full of bees.
"We called local beekeepers for help and one came to look – he said that they were robber bees and they had come to the nest to steal the honey."
Kate said the hive was 'huge' (Kate Dempsey / SWNS)Robber bees is a name used to describe honey bees that invade other hives and try to steal the honey.
Kate said: "We kept finding more and more, there's a bit of roof above our window and that was full of golden honey too. You can imagine the mess. It was horrendous.
"I was really worried about the scale of how much damage could have been caused. I have no idea [how long it was there] but it would have taken a very long time.
"It took us about four weeks in total to remove all the honey but all of us were really keen to try our best not to disrupt the bees or kill any."
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