Massive beehive creating buzz, stirs safety concerns at Miami Dade Wolfson Campus
MIAMI - Miami-Dade College found thousands of squatters living on its Wolfson Campus downtown.
A swarm of 30,000 bees built a hive between the second and third floor windows of the old Dyer Federal Courthouse, under lease and renovation by MDC since 2016.
A CBS News Miami viewer concerned about safety wanted the hive removed without hurting any honey bees.
The buzz two-and-a-half stories above Northeast 4th Street turned heads Monday afternoon.
"How long did (the college) say until they get (the hive) out," Braulio Martinez, an MDC business student who said his friend got stung by a bee on the same street four months ago.
"They gotta take it out. It's a hazard. With my friend, she got stung on the back. You could tell it was a bee sting. When we came back (where it happened) they took pictures of that hive."
"If they feel that they're being threatened (or) approached wrong they may come after you," Willie Sklaroff, Willie The Bee Man, a bee removal specialist said.
The hive is on the northwest corner of the building and hovers over sidewalk and a street with arm gates blocking car traffic.
Students said it is one of the safest walking routes to campus.
"I did actually walk through there to get to my classes and I didn't know until right now that there were bees," Jeremy Pena, an MDC Freshman.
Administrators hired their own certified bee expert to move them to a bee farm.
"We would call Spider-Man so he could go up," Sklaroff said.
Willie the Bee Man is not the expert hired by MDC.
However, he has performed similar removals and said the main challenges involve keeping crowds away during the relocation and getting a bucket truck behind fencing around the building.
"Steps would be set up the equipment, smoke the bees and either vacuum them out or brush them into a bee box," Sklaroff said.
A MDC spokesperson did not say when the removal will happen.
"I'm not going to walk by it until it's gone," Martinez said.
Students sorting out their walks to class on the first day of fall term have mixed feelings.
"I don't care," Pena. "I'm not like people who like hate bees and can't stand them."
"I don't think it's a safe place for the bees to be, realistically," Joanna Duany, an MDC Freshman.
"It's pretty big. (The bee hive) expanding more is probably going to cause trouble. It is a good idea to remove it."
