Thousands of Honey Bees Take Up Residence at Arlington Home

PHOTOS: Close up photo of honey bee in Arlington home of Alex Casiano; Casiano’s dogs are getting stung; chimney where bees have taken up residence; dog wearing cone to keep from irritating a sting on his paw. Photos from GoFundMe page

_________________

An Arlington woman is trying to raise funds to get rid of thousands of bees that have set up residence in an exhaust furnace chimney in her home.

The bees have been buzzing around and inside her home for over a year and are stinging her niece and dogs, says Alex Casiano.

And it’s not cheap to relocate a bunch of bees.

“I want to do what’s right and save these endangered honey bees but to do so is out of my budget,” she says on a GoFundMe site she has set up to try to pay to take care of getting the bees out of her home.

She’s contacted beekeepers and pest control but neither will tackle the project, she recently told WJLA’s “7 On Your Side.”

“I’m faced with either preserving the bees that are destroying my home or protecting my pups!” she says.

The bees began entering her home last year, in the spring of 2014, through the exhaust furnace chimney located 60 feet above her home. Each day, she collected 30 to 50 bees in her basement.

She contacted pest control services, chimney sweeps and “bee extraction people,” she notes on her GoFundMe page.

“No one could help,” she says. She was advised to wait until winter and the bees would “die off.” But come spring, they were back “in full force,” she says. She can’t block off the entry point because it could cause carbon monoxide poisoning, she says.

Now her niece and dogs are getting stung, she says.

To remove the bees and their “ furniture” to a new home requires a “cut out.”

Casiano needs $6,000 to add to her $1,000 to pay someone to break a part the chimney and reconstruct it.

“What I can’t afford is to put my family at risk and as much as I hate to, I can afford to have them eliminated,” she sas. “So I’ll pledge $1,000 but need your help to get us the rest of the way!”

You can donate to the fund here.

It’s uncertain whether the honey bees will be saved.