Patrons of a local pub in the United Kingdom found themselves under siege when thousands of bees suddenly swarmed the establishment on Monday.
A swarm of about 10,000 bees descended on The Yard in the city of Cardiff, causing customers to be ushered indoors.
The staff of the pub had to put a sign warning patrons not to approach the insects and use the side door to enter establishment. They also called in a professional beekeeper to handle the swarm.
"We had customers outside having food and they all ran inside," John Muldoon, manager of The Yard, said. "The bees just descended on to the table."
The beekeeper was able to safely remove the bees from the premises by coaxing their queen to go into a hive. The rest of the swarm then soon followed their leader.
Muldoon said nobody was stung by the bees during the ordeal.
Local bee expert John Padfield explained that the bees could have come from a number of beehives found in the roofs of hotels in the city. He said that the swarm that gathered at The Yard was the average size of a bee colony.
Padfield added that queen bees typically leave the nest once a new queen hatches from one of the eggs it had just laid.
"When she hatches the old queen leaves with half the bees," the bee expert said.
"They are trying to set up a new colony, with scout bees flying around looking for a new home."
Padfield, who was trained under the tutelage of bee expert Bill Lee from south Wales, added that the bees recovered from the pub will be transferred to an area in Peterston-super-Ely located in the west of Cardiff. The insects will be allowed to establish a new bee colony there.
The female workers of the swarm, however, will not have long to live. Padfield said these bees only live for about 40 days during the summer, after which they will all die. The male members of the colony will have a better chance of surviving the transition to another colony.
"All they do is mate with the queens and come back to the hive to eat the honey the females have created," Padfield said. "That's their life."
Photo: Umberto Salvagnin | Flickr
