A swarm of honey bees descended on a vehicle in a Nanaimo parking lot in what ended up being a busy day for a local beekeeping club.
The bees descended on an SUV at a Value Village Friday afternoon, covering the vehicle’s passenger side.
Swarms occur when a queen bee leaves a colony and worker bees follow suit, clustering around her usually on a stationary object like a bush or a tree.
But a swarm landing on a car in a busy parking lot is a rare event, according to Mark Schiling, an executive member of the Nanaimo Beekeepers Club.
Schilling said he was dealing with a colony of bees that had taken up residence in a house when he got the call.
“What I heard is the swarm started to settle on two cars side-by-side in the parking lot,” he said. “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.
Another beekeper first responded to the scene, trying to brush the bees into a box in an attempt to create a new hive. Following that, he used a Shop Vac to try to remove them.
It's a technique Schilling said he doesn't recommend, but he didn't arrive to the scene until after the vacuum was used.
“Occasionally a situation such as this comes along and the circumstances are not conducive to relocating the bees easily and effectively,” said Schilling. “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.”
In another incident, Schilling was called to deal with a more routine swarm in a low bush about a foot off the ground.
For that swarm, he simply shook bees off the branch and into a new hive box, with the rest of the insects following quickly.
B.C. beekeepers say swarms are on the uptick this year because more people are delving into amateur beekeeping.
Schilling says anyone who encounters a swarm should look up a local beekeeping club to deal with it instead of attempting it themselves.
That said, most swarms are docile because they’ll die if they sting.
“Honey bees will only sting to protect their hive,” he said. “They don’t want to do that unless they absolutely have to.”
