--- description: 50,000 of them living in the ceiling of an apartment in Elmhurst, Queens. title: This Woman Found 50,000 Bees Living in Her Ceiling Because Everything Is the Absolute Worst image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt585d40e797037594/6986a09906f2c13bcc3306c0/501892189.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Woman Finds 50,000 Bees Living in Her Ceiling Because Everything Is the Absolute Worst by [Samantha Grossman](/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 22, 2014 8:51 PM CUT  Honey Bees -Apis mellifera- on a freshly-built honeycomb Honey Bees -Apis mellifera- on a freshly-built honeycombGetty Images by [Samantha Grossman](/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 22, 2014 8:51 PM CUT New Yorkers are used to finding all kinds of, er, little critters living in their apartments, but pretty much nothing compares to this. A woman in Elmhurst, Queens, began noticing a few bees buzzing around her apartment over the past few weeks — and then eventually learned that there were 50,000 of them living in her ceiling, local ABC affiliate WABC-TV [reports](http://7online.com/pets/queens-bees-woman-finds-bees-lots-of-honey-in-apartment-ceiling/275795/ "undefined"). Fifty. Thousand. Bees. Living. In. Her. Ceiling. Everything. Is. Awful. “How did they get there? Where did they come from?” the woman, Frieda Turkmenilli, told WABC. “I was shocked.” Well, _yeah_. If this happened to us, we’d totally [pull a Nic Cage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1GadTfGFvU "undefined") and be all, “NOOOO, NOT THE BEES.” Anyway, two beekeepers were recruited to come remove the bees and relocate them — along with the 17 (!!!) honeycombs they managed to build — to a bee farm. So next time you see a roach scuttling beneath your door or a mouse darting behind your fridge, remember: it could be way worse. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3161931/50000-bees-in-ceiling-of-new-york-city-apartment/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3161931/50000-bees-in-ceiling-of-new-york-city-apartment/"},"headline":"Woman Finds 50,000 Bees Living in Her Ceiling Because Everything Is the Absolute Worst","datePublished":"2014-08-22T20:51:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:42.280Z","description":"As if NYC apartment living wasn't hard enough","url":"https://time.com/3161931/50000-bees-in-ceiling-of-new-york-city-apartment/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Bees","Bizarre","New York City","queens"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt585d40e797037594/6986a09906f2c13bcc3306c0/501892189.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt585d40e797037594/6986a09906f2c13bcc3306c0/501892189.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Honey bees","caption":"501892189","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3161931/50000-bees-in-ceiling-of-new-york-city-apartment/","name":"Woman Finds 50,000 Bees Living in Her Ceiling Because Everything Is the Absolute Worst"}}]}] ```