Honey, you won’t bee-lieve this! Couple discover their house was turned into a giant beehive after finding honey dripping down the walls

• The pair from Folkestone, Kent, were quoted £10k to have professionals clear it
• With the help of friends, they did it themselves but revealed it took them ‘weeks’
• READ MORE: Woman finds a 100-year-old Dairy Milk bar under her floorboards 

A couple were shocked after finding their home had turned into a giant beehive when they noticed honey dripping down the walls.

Kate Dempsey, 41, and husband Andrew Dempsey, 42, said they initially dismissed some dark patches around their home in Folkestone, Kent, as damp. 

But a strangely sweet smell wafting around the house made Mrs Dempsey reconsider her initial thoughts. 

She decided to pull up the floorboards and found a six-foot piece of honeycomb along with litres of honey. 

Speaking out about the incredible discovery, Mrs Dempsey, a diversity and inclusion advisor, recalled that took the pair ‘weeks’ to get rid of it all and replace the floor.

Kate Dempsey, 41, and husband Andrew Dempsey, 42, said they initially dismissed some dark patches around their home in Folkestone, Kent, as damp. The couple found an old hive that was completely rotting away, as there seemed to be ‘no end’ to their discovery

After pulling up the floor, the pair found six-foot pieces of honeycomb and litres of honey

Along with some friends and husband Andrew Dempsey (left), 42, a communications director, Mrs Dempsey (right) decided to tackle the problem herself

Kate Dempsey initially dismissed the dark patches as damp. But the sweet smell made her reconsider and she pulled up the floorboards at home in Folkestone, Kent

The sheer volume of the hive was huge. The pair said they ‘kept cutting these floorboards away and more and more honeycomb kept appearing’

She said: ‘We’d never seen anything like it. The sheer volume of the hive was huge.

‘We kept cutting these floorboards away and more and more honeycomb kept appearing.

‘The smell hit you immediately. It was this sweet stench and we had this really sickly smell for ages – [I just felt] disbelief really.’

After trying to find someone a company to clean up all of the honeycomb, the couple were quoted costs of up to a whopping £10,000.

So, along with some friends, the pair decided to brave it and tackle the problem themselves. 

They donned a pair of rubber gloves to scoop the sticky honey out, removing huge amounts.

But to make matters worse, swarms of ‘robber bees’ continuously kept on swooping in and trying to claim the sweet stuff for themselves as the Dempsey’s worked during a hot summer’s day.

The couple also revealed that they disgustingly found maggots and moths among the honey and around the floor.

Kate Dempsey and husband Andrew Dempsey say it took them around ‘four weeks in total to remove all the honey’

Along with their friends, the pair donned a pair of rubber gloves to scoop the sticky honey out, removing huge amounts. After taking it all out, they replaced the floorboards

Mrs Dempsey was quoted up to £10,000 when she tried to find a company to clean up all the honeycomb – so she decided to do it herself

The 41-year-old said: ‘It all started in the really hot summer last year. We noticed black sticky stuff coming down our bedroom wall.

‘It got to the point where we couldn’t ignore it anymore. I smelt it and tasted it and it was honey.

‘I didn’t have any idea what was going on.

‘We’d spotted bees when we first moved in but they disappeared, and we’d had the house repainted.

‘I went to our daughter’s room which is above ours and pulled back the carpet. These massive maggots started crawling out of the floorboards.’

She continued to say that they found an old hive that was completely rotting away, as there seemed to be ‘no end’ to their discovery.

Kate revealed that swarms of ‘robber bees’ kept on swooping into the home and trying to claim the honey for themselves as they worked during a hot summer’s day

While digging through the honeycomb, Mrs Dempsey said that they kept finding so much more, and even found a ‘bit of roof above our window and that was full of golden honey too’

The mother explained: ‘We decided we were going to pull up the floorboards and see what was going on. We found an old hive and it was almost composting, loads of moths were coming out.

‘We started pulling more and more, there just seemed to be no end, it was absolutely disgusting.

‘We pulled up this massive six-foot honeycomb. When we were in the middle of [clearing it out], we woke up one morning and the room was full of bees.

‘We called local beekeepers for help and one came to look – he said that they were robber bees and they had come to the nest to steal the honey.’

Robber bees is a name used to describe honey bees which invade other hives and steal the honey.

And Mrs Dempsey said that they kept on digging out more honeycomb, revealing that the mess was ‘horrendous’. 

She said: ‘We kept finding more and more, there’s a bit of roof above our window and that was full of golden honey too.

‘You can imagine the mess. It was horrendous.

‘I was really worried about the scale of how much damage could have been caused. I have no idea [how long it was there] but it would have taken a very long time.

‘It took us about four weeks in total to remove all the honey but all of us were really keen to try our best not to disrupt the bees or kill any.’

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