After years of calling a University of North Texas building home, two hives of bees are gone from campus.
The buzz was around UNT's Radio, Television, Film Building home. The bee colonies lived in the walls of the north side of the building long enough to become honorary UNT mascots.
The university decided to remove the bees after one colony became aggressive, posing safety concerns for students and faculty who walk near the building.
"They need to be removed because of the damage to the building they're causing," Buddy Price, of UNT, said.
In March, UNT said the bees would be exterminated but then later said it would look for a better less lethal option.
"One of the hives has been there about 18 years that we know of," said Buddy Price, of UNT. "The other hive, we just noticed a couple of years ago."
UNT called in the big guns -- the bee busters of Bee Safe Pest Control.
"We're going to open up the brick and remove the hive alive, then transplant them into a beehive and, hopefully, they survive."
The job was scheduled to take a couple of days, but Wright and his crew made quick work of the bee removal job on Saturday morning.
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"We knocked it out all in one day, and we get a little bit of a reward after all that," Wright said.
Both hives, just under 5-by-5 feet, yielded about 50 pounds of honey each -- a sweet perk of the job.
"I look terrible with this, but it's so good," Wright said. "We've been eating honey all day."
There is a possibility some bees that were not captured could try to reclaim the area, but Wright said his crew placed a pest control substance around the area that should prevent any bees from colonizing there.
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