Bee Swarm Finds Home Under Kids' Trampoline

A Prosper family got a big surprise when they found hundreds of bees swarming beneath their trampoline.

Erin Falterman said the bees moved in below her children's trampoline over the weekend.

"My husband moved the trampoline the day before to mow and nothing," she said.

But the swarm was right there when her daughter tried to get onto the trampoline on Sunday afternoon.

"That's the scary thing -- as a mom, if your child has never been stung by a bee, you don't know if they're allergic until they get stung," Falterman said.

Bee Safe, a bee removal company, was in her backyard Monday evening to corral the swarm into a cardboard box and away from the Falterman home.

"That's why we're in business, because bees are coming into the cities, going onto people's properties, and they find homes under people's trampolines or in their eaves or walls," said beekeeper Harold Wright, adding that it's been a particularly busy season for them.

Bee Safe removed a large swarm from the front of a pizza parlor in Addison over the weekend, as well as a swarm of thousands in Sunnyvale on Monday morning.

At this time of year, Wright often has at least one box of bees in the back of his truck at any given time.

"Every single day; this is swarm season," he said. "It starts in the middle of March, ends in the middle of June, and we're constantly daily picking up bee swarms."

Wright said it’s important to call an expert to remove bee swarms right away, before they get worse. If a swarm does simply leave on its own, it usually doesn't go very far and oftentimes gets deeper into a person's property, he said.

He and other North Texas insect specialists say that bees are essential to the ecosystem, and that many are treated as protected because of their use as pollinators and honey makers.

"They're probably the most beneficial insect that we know of," Wright said.

But bees sting, and an Africanized swarm can be very aggressive in doing so.

"Call ... a bee professional company the same day,' Wright said. "It's better to get them knocked out, removed, whatever, the very same day you see them."

The Faltermans' main swarm is now gone, and the straggling bees near their Prosper home are slowly flying away for good.

"It just totally gave me the shivers and grossed me out," Falterman said. "I want it to be gone; I don't want to see it."

Contact Us