A TikTok-famous beekeeper shares the most surprising places she's removed bees, from toilets to empty RVs

Erika Thompson has always loved animals.

She told Insider that growing up, she'd catch bugs in glass jars and write wish lists urging her parents to buy her a pet bunny. So naturally, she found a career working with insects.

Thompson has been a beekeeper for more than a decade. Today, she owns her business Texas Beeworks, where she works toward maintaining a healthy honeybee population.

Part of that mission involves educating others about the importance of bees. She told Insider that bees are gentle creatures that help support our ecosystem and food systems.

Another part of her job is rescuing and removing bees from undesired locations, she said.

Thompson often answers calls from people who have unwanted bees in their homes, backyards, or businesses.

Instead of calling an exterminator, they call Thompson who can safely remove the bees while keeping them alive.

During a removal, Thompson will collect the bees' honeycomb, search for the queen, and place the majority of the hive into a new home. She'll bring the hive back to her home, where the honeybees can live happily, she told Insider.

In April 2020, Thompson decided to share her profession on TikTok, and it quickly went viral. At the time of writing, her TikTok account, @texasbeeworks, has 5.5 million followers and 74.6 million likes.

People are fascinated by Thompson, who is seen scooping up hundreds of bees usually without gloves or protection.

Thompson and singer Jason Derulo bonded over bees in Derulo's California backyard, as shown in Thompson's TikTok video from November 2020.

Derulo had a hive of unwanted bees in a tree in his backyard, so Thompson arrived to help, Thompson said in the video.

Together, the duo enjoyed honey and safely brought the bees to the Bee Leaf USA sanctuary in Southern California, Thompson said in the video.

Thompson told Insider that bees typically form their hives in areas that are enclosed and protected, so she said she was shocked to learn about a hive that had formed in an exposed tire.

"It didn't seem like a good place for the bees, but they were living very happily there," she told Insider.

Fortunately, the removal was an easier one, she said. Once she cut away from the overgrowth of the nearby woods, she was able to remove the whole hive by simply lifting and relocating the tire.

Thompson told Insider that this was one of the weirdest calls she's ever received. She said that a person had an empty toilet in their backyard, and a few years ago, the bees decided to move in.

When Thompson opened the toilet's tank, she said she found it full of honeycomb and honeybees.

She could tell the bees had been living in the toilet for years. Fortunately, they got a new home in Thompson's backyard, outside of Austin, Texas, where she has about 50 different hives.

Abandoned houses and sheds are common places for bees, Thompson told Insider.

But one empty house stood apart from the rest due to the hive's size.

"I got a call from one beehive in an old house and there ended up being five gigantic floor-to-ceiling, 8-foot-tall hives in that house that I had to remove," she said. "That was pretty cool and special."

Thompson told Insider she spent a solid week in the abandoned house removing the bees.

In the bathroom of a camper, Thompson told Insider she discovered a colony of bees had made the RV their home.

In a video on TikTok from January, Thompson explained that she used smoke to help the bees disperse from the honeycomb. Then, she gently cut off the comb, placed it in wooden frames, and added it to a box, which will be the new home for the bees.

After that was complete, she noticed that the bees had swarmed to an outer area of the RV, so she scooped those up, placed them in the hive, and finished the removal, Thompson said in the video.

She told Insider she wakes up every morning eager to discover the next unusual place she'll find a beehive.

"I'm thankful for the opportunity to show people that you can work alongside bees," she said.