Over 200 Bees Form Large Beehive on Laundry Pole Outside Punggol HDB Flat; Resident Had to Contact Town Council for Help

Bees. They are cute in comics and even cuter in movies. They even look cute in photos, with fluffy, black-and-gold bodies and wide round eyes.

But they aren’t so cute when 200 of them gather around your laundry pole ready to make it their new home. 

This, unfortunately, was what happened to a Punggol resident on 10 April, Shin Min Daily News reports.

It was a morning of calm winds and beautiful sunshine when Mr Lim, 32, left his home in Block 256 Sumang Walk for work. In less than seven hours, however, he found more than 200 bees tightly clustered around his laundry pole when he returned from work at 2.45pm. 

They were, apparently, making a hive around the pole.

He called the Town Council immediately for pest control to be dispatched. The hive grew even larger in the three hours it took for pest control to arrive, and he was told the bees would have been even harder to clear had he not promptly alerted the Town Council.

Well, it was hard not to notice a huge cluster of bees right outside your window, anyway.

The bees fell to the window ledge after insecticide treatment, and Mr Lim disposed of the beehive himself, which remained on the pole.

He noted that the persistent gusts outside his 15-storey-high flat and a playground directly below could have meant greater danger should an active beehive fall.

At least he got free honey from the beehive… I hope. I wouldn’t trade though.

Zoo in HDB?

Unfortunately, living in a Garden City does come with the prospect of unexpected visitors.

As recently as 26 Jan, a man encountered two bats in his home, which he documented on Facebook.

According to the post, he exited his room for a cup of water only to see a bat flapping around his home. It was, evidently, a rude shock, and he quickly returned to his room hoping the bat would leave on its own.

When he checked the living room again, however, he found that there were two bats rather than zero. 

Well, “bat” sounds like “prosperity” in Chinese. Guess he’s getting double the riches.

In payment for the auspicious blessing, he appears to have been charged bites of fruit: there were obvious bite marks on a bunch of bananas he left in his kitchen.

He eventually managed to evict the bats by hanging bananas on a laundry pole outside his window. They came for the bananas, and they will go with them.

But if you thought bats were bad enough, try some wild boars instead. In June last year, Facebook user Ibu Nur Aini uploaded a video of an adult and three piglets gallivanting through an HDB block at night, apparently scavenging through waste. 

Habitat fragmentation, where large swathes of nature are fractured by roads or urban construction, may have contributed to the incursion of wild animals into the urban environment. 

Incorrectly disposing of food waste, too, can lure wild boars to residential premises. But in case you are thinking of making one your pet with generous food gifts, remember that a boar can run very fast and its teeth can cause serious injuries.

Featured Image: Facebook (Shin Min Daily News 新明日报)