Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Carol Howarth was planning on just having a simple and normal day in May. She headed to a nature reserve to spend some time communing with nature. When she was done, she got in her car and headed back into civilization. She stopped at a store, as one will do, and then returned to find a swarm of bees all around her car.

It’s not the sight one wants to be faced with after a little afternoon shopping. What exactly does one do with thousands of bees on and around the trunk of one’s car? With bees going extinct, getting a big can of bug spray isn’t really the best option.

Luckily, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park ranger Tom Moses was on the case.

Credit: TOM MOSES/FACEBOOK

People had stopped to take pictures and marvel at the sight of the bees on the car’s trunk. Tom Moses noticed and went in for a closer look. Using his connections through work, he called two members of the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers’ Association to help.

I was a little bit concerned, with it being in the middle of town outside a pub, that someone might do something stupid and get hurt or do something stupid and hurt the bees

The solution seems more simple than you might assume. The beekeepers swept some of the bees into a box, and then just waited for the others to follow suit.

Credit: TOM MOSES/FACEBOOK

Thinking the problem had been taken care of, Howarth headed home. She woke up the next day to find the bees had returned and were congregating at the same point on her car.

The theory behind this behavior is that the queen of the hive somehow ended up in the car’s trunk, and when the bees were removed the first time, they missed the queen, leading to them coming back the next day.

It is possible the queen had been attracted to something in the car – perhaps a sweet or food in the car. The swarm of around 20,000 had followed her and were sat around on the boot of the car. -Roger Burns, Pembrokeshire Beekeepers

The bees were removed after the second day, and no further incident has occurred, but if they do come back, Howarth may just have to give up and buy a new car.

Source: A Swarm of Bees Follow a Car for Two Days