TEMECULA - It sounded like it was raining inside the walls of his house, but Denny Mighell knew that was impossible in the heat of July.

What he heard was actually thousands of bees which had made his two-story Temecula house their home.

"It was like the house was swarmed," Mighell said while standing outside his home Tuesday.

Just the day before it was so bad that he and his wife, Maryann, were literally trapped inside their home for several hours, he said.

She is allergic to bee stings so they ultimately had to get her prescription filled in case she was stung, Mighell said.

One of the places the bees had accumulated was above the first-floor bedroom where the couple's two young granddaughters sleep when they visit. The bees were buzzing in the small area between the first-floor ceiling and the floor of the second floor, Mighell said.

The bees "were bouncing around in the walls, going crazy in there," he said. "It sounded like raindrops the way they were hitting the wall and ceiling."

Mighell discovered that he had been invaded a few days ago and it turns out the bees had been living inside his home for some time, unbeknownst to the Mighells.

Mitch Denny, the exterminator Mighell called, determined the winged ones had made their way in through a small vent in a bathroom protruding from one side of the house. The vent has a metal screen with very small holes, but the bees were still able to get in.

"They can flatten their bodies" and get through very small openings, Denny, of Denny Pest Control ,said.

Denny said he is getting more calls this year compared to last from people who discover they have a bee problem, with a few calls a week now where he'd get maybe a couple a month in 2006.

"It seems to be a worse problem than usual this year," he said. "I'm still trying to figure out why."

When he gets to the bee scene, Denny says he's finding some pretty big hives.

"The bees seem to be establishing bigger hives real quickly in homes," Denny said, adding that he is finding an average of 2,000 to 5,000 bees at each hive.

Bob Garcia, owner of Private Pest Exterminators, said he pulled out a 60-pound hive from a Temecula home recently.

It was in a wall void of the home and the bees had made their way in through an eave of the second story of the house, Garcia said.

"The owner saw a few of the bees, but didn't think it was a problem," Garcia said, until the honey started to melt in the heat and stain the stucco on the side of the house.

Bee season starts about March and April, as flowers begin to bloom, he said, and extends through the summer.

Garcia said that, even though experts have determined there is a national shortage of bees and no one really knows why, there is still a strong bee presence in Southwest County.

He's averaging four or five calls a week. "It hasn't slowed down this year," Garcia said.

Most of the bees Garcia says he has come in contact with locally are European bees, which he says are very docile compared to the more famous Africanized honey bees that hit the United States several years ago. He said those are much more aggressive and have cross bred with the European bees as well.

The calls he gets aren't always for established colonies found in houses. "I get a lot of calls for swarms," he said.

If a swarm is in an area that doesn't create a safety issue for anyone, Garcia says he'll usually advise people to stay away and let the bees be.

"They'll usually just hang on to a tree for a day or so, resting, then move on," he said. "It is always much better if we can repel or relocate the bees if at all possible" rather than kill them, Garcia said.

If you get rid of all the bees, he said, that can lead to serious environmental problems.

"They are the main pollinators of fruit trees, for example," Garcia said.

- Contact staff writer John Hall at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2628, or jhall@californian.com.

Experts give the following advice regarding bees:

• Should you be attacked or swarmed: Get away from them as quickly as possible, running in a straight line away from the swarm and try to get into a car or building. Cover your eyes and your face.

• If stung: Remove the stinger as soon as possible by scraping rather than pulling and do not squeeze it. Wash the area to prevent infection and apply ice to relieve pain. Call a medical professional if breathing becomes difficult or if stung numerous times.

• To help bee-proof your home: Fill in potential nesting areas such as tree cavities and holes in outside walls. Put screens on tops of rain spouts and remove piles of trash from the yard. Walk around the home once or twice a week during bee season to check for possible entry areas.

• If you find a bee colony or hive, do not disturb it and keep pets and people away from it. Call a professional to handle it.