When Brandon Caston was mowing the lawn earlier this week he disturbed a beehive that was about 250,000 members strong.

Friday afternoon at the corner of Union Church Road and Hartman Street, Caston and his father watched from a safe distance as a hive of bees was exterminated from a vacant house on property their family owns.

“I got hit by 30 or 40 of them when I was mowing the grass,” Caston said. “I knew there were tons. I just didn’t know they would all come out like that.”

That was when Caston took to Google to find someone who could help him.

Ken Ensminger works for A.H. Meyer & Sons Honey & BeesWax out of Vidalia, Louisiana. When he’s not tending to their 3,000 hives or his own 200, he works independently as an exterminator, a job that keeps him moving around. Ensminger also sells the honey from his personal hives under the name Ken’s Golden Honey.

“These are classified as nuisance bees,” Ensminger said about the hive found at the Caston’s property.

Usually for smaller hives with less chance of danger, Ensminger would be able to remove the bees without killing them, take them back to possibly add to his hives and harvest the honey. However this hive was far too large.

“I have to destroy them,” he said.

Ensminger said that the hive existed in a 40-inch wide cavity at the front of the house. Removed outer panels exposed a space where Ensminger said the bees had produced about half a tub of honey. He said a hive that size probably included about a quarter of a million bees.

After many larger companies stopped killing bees, that’s when Ensminger said he started doing what he does now. He said that he sprays a chemical on the hive, much like the chemical used to exterminate termites. Then he has to cut out all the wax or another swarm or hive will come in and make the abandoned comb their new headquarters.

He said in about a week’s time the bees should have all died and routine lawn upkeep can soon be completed without the worry of future attacks.