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Woman Gets Jail After Unleashing Swarm of Bees During an Eviction

“It really was just a sincere hope that he would not suffer the humiliation and devastation of... Saldarelli said “it was a reaction to having your face put down in the pavement and being...

NYTIMES 입력 2026.04.27 18:06 0

Woman Gets Jail After Unleashing Swarm of Bees During an Eviction

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Woman Gets Jail After Unleashing Swarm of Bees During an Eviction

The woman, who is a beekeeper, was sentenced to six months after being convicted of using the bees as a weapon against deputies during a 2022 eviction.

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A sheriff’s deputy tried to wrestle a tower of beehives away from Rebecca Woods as the deputies sought to serve an eviction notice in Longmeadow, Mass., in 2022.

Credit...

Hampden County Sheriff's Department, via Reuters

Adeel Hassan

April 27, 2026,

5:04 a.m. ET

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The sheriff’s deputies were already at the open double doors of a $1.9 million mansion on a leafy cul-de-sac in suburban Longmeadow, Mass., on a crisp autumn morning in 2022, serving eviction papers.

Then an S.U.V. with an attached trailer carrying wooden crates pulled into the semicircular driveway,

according to a video

posted by MassLive.

“Hey, hey, hey, she has a truck full of bees,” one deputy can be heard telling another, who responded, “What?”

The driver, Rebecca Woods, a beekeeper, had already gotten out and was lifting the lid off a stack of beehives. She said in a court affidavit that her intent was to let the bees forage on the “lovely flowering landscape,” while also protesting the eviction.

But in the tussle over the remaining crates, some toppled, releasing hundreds more bees, which stung the deputies and other sheriff’s staff members multiple times, including one who suffered stings to the face and head, and another who was hospitalized.

Ms. Woods, who did not live at the home, was convicted by a jury in district court in Springfield, Mass., this month of using the bees as a weapon against the deputies.

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