Layton residents bugged after thousands of bees move into neighborhood
Apr 2, 2018, 6:39 AM | Updated: Apr 3, 2018, 12:42 am
LAYTON — A Layton family got some new neighbors, and they’re annoying, to say the least. Hundreds of thousands of bees moved into the field behind the family’s house, but they’re not staying there.
“You went to open my front door and there were just bees everywhere,” said homeowner Meg Murray.
Murray says Thursday night, trucks started unloading equipment. She thought maybe a new home was being built, but the next morning, she found out a different kind of neighbor had moved in, and they were helping themselves to her backyard pool.
“They were in the trees. They were up against my house. They had covered my pool,” said Murray. “You couldn’t walk back here without bees just covering you.”
Meg’s father Fred Murray, who owns a couple of beehives himself, says there are around 160 beehives in the field, each with thousands of bees. He believes that many never should have been brought into a neighborhood surrounded by homes.
“I think they just decided that, oh, we can put 800,000 bees in the middle of a subdivision and feel that it’s alright,” said Fred Murray. “I don’t know why.”
“This field is usually just full of kids just running around it in,” said Meg Murray. “It’s dead out here compared to how it usually is.”
The Murrays say they’ve talked to the beekeepers and they’ve talked to Layton city officials, who told them there have already been a lot of complaints. They even called the police, but not much can be done. They plan to go to a city council meeting on April 5, and say they’ll keep fighting.
But until the bees move out, the Murrays are moving in, away from the bees.
“We’ve had to keep the kids in the house for the past three days,” said Meg Murray. “This needs to change. This shouldn’t be allowed to be in people’s backyards.”
According to Layton city mayor Bob Stevenson, the property belongs to his mother. He allowed someone to stage the beehives on the field for five to seven days while he prepares them to be disbursed throughout the county. Stevenson says the bees will be moved this coming week.
