Giant bee hive scares some who live in Lakeland mobile home park

LAKELAND, Fla. - What started out as a small hive grew into a large colony in the middle of a Lakeland mobile home park. Worried residents waited weeks for management to act.

It has been weeks since Shirley Hunt ventured more than a foot or two into her back yard.  Another neighbor, Janice Boyd, is also nervous about the growing problem across the street.

The bee hive started out small, but in just a matter of weeks, neighbors say it grew to cover a three-foot section of steps on an abandoned trailer just a few feet away from Hunt’s home.

Hunt says management is not doing enough to protect tenants.  She says the manager did come by once and spray the hive, a move neighbors claim caused the bees to swarm for two hours. "It was like a tornado. It started out small from the hive and they were that big around and they started swarming the front yard," said Hunt.

I called the landlord and relayed the tenants' fears. Park management explained they followed the advice of a beekeeper in spraying the poison on the bees and were in the process of putting together another plan of attack.  

Days later, a resident took photographs of two men wrapping the hive using a large piece of plastic, which killed the colony.

The management office emailed a statement, reading, "The bees were successfully removed, without incident, from the mobile home..."

The residents who live closest to the hive say they are relieved they no longer have to worry about getting stung.