A group of beekeepers in Nanaimo, B.C. were called in after a swarm of honey bees covered a parked vehicle.
The insects swarmed an SUV parked outside a local Value Village on Friday afternoon.
Mark Schilling, an executive member of the Nanaimo Beekeepers Club, said swarms usually happen when a queen bee leaves her colony. Workers bees will follow her and surround her wherever she lands.
But in this case, the beekeepers didn’t find the queen bee.
“What I heard is the swarm started to settle on two cars side-by-side in the parking lot,” Schilling told CTV Vancouver Island. “One of them, the owner just had to go, so she just drove away…There’s a good chance she drove away with the queen,” he said.
The beekeeper said swarms are becoming more common because more people are trying amateur beekeeping. A swarm landing on a car, however, is very unusual, he said.
Another beekeeper used a vacuum to collect the bees before taking them to a new hive.
Schilling said that, while he would have used a different method, the removal of the bees was still a success.
“Occasionally a situation such as this comes along and the circumstances are not conducive to relocating the bees easily and effectively,” he said. “I wouldn’t call today’s situation a failure, as I’m sure most of the bees survived, but it wasn’t strictly a success as we weren’t able to re-hive the swarm and look after them to maximize their chances of survival."
Anyone who encounters a swarm bees is advised to contact a beekeeper instead of trying to deal with the situation themselves.
With files from CTV Vancouver Island
