Held Hostage by... Bees?

Featured Instigator Kevin Downing is on the verge of having his own feature at this site. His latest is a story that scares the holy hell out of yours truly, who has never been stung by a bee...

Kids throwing rocks stirred up more trouble than they bargained for when
they dislodged a swarm of bees from an enormous hive built in the wall of a
Southern California apartment building, authorities said on Friday.

An estimated 120,000 bees held residents of the apartment building and
nearby homes hostage in Santa Ana, California after the children pelted their
500 pound (227 kg) hive with rocks on Thursday, Santa Ana Fire Captain Steve
Horner said.

...An exterminator later fogged the hive and vacuumed out 40,000 dead bees,
then set a trap for returning worker bees, of which about 80,000 were captured,
Horner said.

The quarter-ton honeycomb, which may have accumulated inside the apartment
wall for years, was so big it was threatening the structural integrity of the
two-story building, Horner said.

We're checking with civil engineering authorities to see whether that last line was accurate. One would think this will probably lead to efforts by the California legislature to ban bees, since they have enough time on their hands to ban the names of high school mascots.