It was déjà vu for Lorna Shaw but worse.
In the middle of summer four years ago, 50 to 100 bees swarmed into the LaGrange Park resident's apartment from an outside wire.
Two Sundays ago, Shaw again woke up to the sound of buzzing. This time it was a few more bees than 100.
"We thought it was a dust cloud," Shaw said when she followed the sound to a wire leading into her Forest Glen Apartments home. "It wasn't. It was thousands upon thousands of bees."
Shaw got her dogs out of the apartment and called the apartment maintenance service, who said bees weren't considered an emergency. Alarmed, she called everyone from the Department of Agriculture to local beekeepers. No one was around on Sundays.
"You couldn't even see where the wire was," Shaw said. "It looked like someone wrapped black fabric around it."
Shaw and her boyfriend, who was stung twice, spent the night in a hotel. On Monday, building management sealed the hole leading to her apartment, trapping the nest inside the wall.
"Where are the bees going to come out? My apartment," she said. "It wasn't a good scenario."
Shaw said she swatted about 100 bees. An exterminator came in, but last Saturday, the bees returned, both outside and inside.
Maintenance broke into the wall to remove the nest. Since then, Shaw said she and her boyfriend are still finding a bee here and there.
"If nothing else it makes people a little more aware of the situation," she said. "It was a horrible situation."
Apartment management has compensated Shaw for her hotel stay.
