Finding 50,000 bees in your home sounds like something straight out of poorly-scripted nightmare, though apparently such an incident took place inside photojournalist Larry Chen’s California house not too long ago. Since Chen spends quite a bit of his time on the road, he wasn’t aware of just how extreme the problem had become. According to ABC News, Larry began to notice a lot of buzzing around one of his windows, prompting him to investigate the matter on his own. He’s obviously a much braver man than I.

Upon returning home from an assignment, Chen decided to take action against the intruders. After searching through Craigslist for someone to remove the pests without murdering each and every one of them, the homeowner enlisted the services of aptly-named specialist Mike Bee, who arrived at Chen’s house armed with a host of humane tools and instruments. Although Larry expected to find some bees tucked away inside the walls, his estimate was a little off.

“I’m not really terrified of the bees,” Chen explained. “I just remained calm, and I figured they wouldn’t bother me too much. I got stung once, but I was more curious about how big the hive actually was. I figured it was just a small clump of 1,000 or so.”

After giving the house a thorough once-over, Chen and Mike Bee discovered that there were nearly 50,000 bees living inside the walls. The prolific little honey-makers were apparently entering the photojournalist’s humble abode through an unguarded ventilation pipe, giving them access to an area that was perfect for a hive.

Using methods that would ensure that the majority of the bees would be removed instead of exterminated, Mike Bee set out to evict these unwanted house guests from Larry’s home. When all was said and done, two boxes containing 20,000 bees were filled, with several thousand estimated to have escaped their would-be captor’s clutches.