Ashley Class and her family live in an older home in Charlotte. When Class' toddler began complaining about monsters in her bedroom, she thought it may have been her daughter's imagination acting up, sparked by a recent viewing of the 2001 animated movie "Monsters, Inc."
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"With a 100-year-old farmhouse, we have found any little thing that can happen. But this was beyond our expectations," Class told "Good Morning America."
The Classes soon discovered a much stickier situation.
"We noticed a couple bees when we were outside playing with the kids and then as the days progressed, we saw more and more and we thought, 'That's a little strange,'" Class recalled.
The family hired beekeepers to help them find the source of the buzzing to no avail -- until Curtis Collins stepped in.
"I knew they were there. It's just a matter of where they were making their hive," said Collins, a beekeeper who has been doing removals in homes for six years.
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Collins said he was able to track down the bees in the bedroom belonging to Class' daughter and used a thermal imaging camera to locate a massive hive.
"I believe that may be actually the first one that I've done that was floor to ceiling," Collins said.
Ashley Class, who shared a TikTok video about the discovery, said the beehive looked "almost like a man in the wall by the shape of it" and her husband Chris Class said the hive "took up the entire wall space."
The Classes said there were tens of thousands of bees living inside their daughter's bedroom wall.
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"When he opened it up, they were, I guess, just swarming around our room. We didn't even have time to get any of her stuff out of the room," Ashley Class said.
Since honey bees are endangered animals, exterminating them wasn't an option. The Classes have now begun the long process of removing the bees from their home, a task that has forced their daughter to move into her sibling's room.
"It was really neat to be able to show our 3-year-old, these are the monsters you've been hearing. You're completely right," Class said.