Monsters bee gone: Toddler's claim of monster in her wall turns out to be 50,000 bees

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

This next story has been getting a lot of buzz. The internet had strong feelings when Ashley Massis Class, a mom in Charlotte, N.C., posted a TikTok about her daughter insisting that there were monsters in her room beginning eight months ago.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Yeah. Specifically, Class' daughter, Saylor, who is now 3 1/2, said there were monsters living in her wall.

ASHLEY MASSIS CLASS: And would point to where her closet was. She, as a young toddler - we assumed it was a very imaginative story.

KELLY: Saylor, by the way, loves the movie "Monsters Inc."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Take you into the world behind your closet door.

BILLY CRYSTAL: (As Mike Wazowski) Ah.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We've always been afraid monsters were there...

CRYSTAL: (As Mike Wazowski) Scary feet, scary feet, scary feet - oop (ph). The kid's awake.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Waiting to scare us.

MASSIS CLASS: We watch that movie so many times. It's, like, her comfort movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: "Monsters Incorporated."

CRYSTAL: (As Mike Wazowski) It's a musical.

MASSIS CLASS: My husband and I would pretend to look for monsters. We would give her monster spray, which was just a bottle of water.

SUMMERS: That's a pretty good parenting hack. But sadly, it did not work.

MASSIS CLASS: Flash-forward to February. I had our third baby, and so she became aggressive with, there are monsters in my room. And I thought it was that there's a new baby and, you know, mom was getting more time split.

KELLY: After Saylor endured months of what obviously were tiny monsters living in her bedroom closet, her mom finally called pest control. A specialist was called in - a beekeeper, or a monster hunter to young Saylor.

MASSIS CLASS: He finally drilled a hole into our attic wall. And so he said, you know what? What's underneath this attic vent? And we said, it's actually her bedroom.

KELLY: So the beekeeper went into the bedroom with a thermal camera.

MASSIS CLASS: And it lit up like Christmas. It was floor to ceiling. And he's like, do you see what I'm seeing?

KELLY: What he was seeing was an enormous, 100-pound honeycomb and about 50,000 bees, which he carried away in bee boxes.

SUMMERS: Saylor was relieved.

MASSIS CLASS: Brought her over to the bee box, and we said, hey. Is this - and I videotaped it, actually. And I said, is this what you've been hearing? She said, yes - monsters.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MASSIS CLASS: Bye, monsters. Get out of here.

SAYLOR CLASS: Hi, little bee.

SUMMERS: Those little bees also caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages.

MASSIS CLASS: It's been a nightmare.

KELLY: I'll say. It was what you might call a monstrosity.

(SOUNDBITE OF NICKI MINAJ SONG, "BEEZ IN THE TRAP") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.