This is the story of a ferocious army determined to rescue their queen from a metal fortress.
Or rather, a swarm of bees that, for two days, may have followed their queen bee trapped inside a Mitsubishi Outlander. Either way, it makes for a good tale.
The Outlander belongs to Carol Howarth, a 68-year-old Welsh grandmother, who had no idea she’d picked up a tiny winged passenger when she visited a nature reserve.
Later, when she stopped to go shopping in Haverfordwest, West Wales, the bees descended — thousands and thousands of them.
Local ranger Tom Moses, who works at Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, was driving by when he happened upon the raid.
“Driving through town noticed this going on outside the Lower Three Crowns and couldn’t resist getting involved!” he wrote in a pun-filled post on his Facebook page. (The post began: “Bee-rilliant swarmathon.”)
He was worried someone might do something “stupid.”
Bees are already dying from habitat loss and terrible farming practices, like pesticide use, he figured. The last thing you want is someone to pour boiling water on them to shoo them away from a car, Moses wrote.
So, he called in reinforcements — the intrepid folks at the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association.
They gingerly nudged the bees into a box. Still, there were several stinging incidents.
The next morning, Howarth found the bees were back, she told The Telegraph.
So once again, out came the beekeepers.
By 6 p.m., her Outlander was free of the bees. (No word though on what happened to the queen.)
Moses says members of colonies often follow their queen bee if she moves hives.
And queens moves hives if the hives are disturbed — say, by humans. Or by the arrival of another queen bee.
He speculates the shiny warm Mitsubishi might have seemed like a good option for a new home.