20,000 bees chase car for two days because they didn't want to leave their queen
The loyal swarm invaded the back of the car in an effort to be nearer their matriarch
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Your support makes all the difference.A car was pursued by a loyal 20,000-strong swarm of bees for two days after their queen got trapped in the boot.
The disgruntled swarm chased the 4x4 through Haverfordwest, west Wales, and attached themselves to the rear of the car where they remained for over 48 hours.
Carol Howarth, a 65-year-old grandmother, said she “had never seen anything like it” when thousands of the insects flew at the back of her silver Mitsubishi Outlander.
Five beekeepers, park wardens and passers spent hours trying to get the bees into a cardboard box in which they could be transported safely away.
However shortly after this was achieved, the wind blew off the lid of the box and the queen became lodged in the car’s rear compartment once again.
The owner drove away unaware before the swarm returned to the car once more in an attempt to rescue their trapped matriarch.
Roger Burns, from Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association, told the Milford Mercury: “We think the queen had been attracted to something in the car, perhaps something sweet, and had got into a gap on the boot’s wiper blade or perhaps the hinge.
“I left the cardboard box on the roof while we waited for the last few hundred bees to leave the boot but then a gust of wind blew it off and the queen fled back to the boot again.
“I have been beekeeping for 30 years and I have never seen a swarm do that. It is natural for them to follow the queen but it is a strange thing to see and quite surprising to have a car followed for two days. It was quite amusing.”
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