It was a crisp autumn morning when 68-year-old Carol Howarth parked her car in the town centre in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire and went for a shopping trip at a nearby supermarket. But little did she know that she would come back to see her car being covered with thousands of bees!
It was Sunday morning of May 22 when Howarth came upon to see her Mitsubishi Outlander being swarmed with 20,000 of bees, covering the boot of her car
Thankfully, a rescue squad which consisted of three beekeepers, a national park ranger and several members of the public managed to catch the bees and lock them up in a special bee-keepers box.
Mrs Howarth said: “It was incredible really. I’ve never seen anything like it – it just goes to show the power of nature”
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park ranger Tom Moses said that he spotted the swarm on the car which was parked outside the Three Crowns pub in Haverfordwest and it gave him a concern about the public’s safety as many passersby were amazed by the bizarre sight and took their chance to take pictures of the car as well as that someone might spray pesticide to the insects
“I had seen swarms before settling on things like this but never one as large as this. It was quite a thing to see – certainly a ‘wow’ moment,” Moses said.
“I was really worried that someone could get hurt by them or that someone might damage them in their bid to clear the car so I stopped to help out.”
After the swarm had been captured, Mrs Howarth returned to her car and drove home, believing that the problem had been solved only to realise the next day that swarm had actually followed her back home and covered her car again
Mrs Howarth was then forced to contact the beekeepers again who finally captured the swarm by 6 pm on the same day.
Following the second incident, one of the beekeepers came up with an interesting theory that the bees’ queen might have been trapped in Mrs Howarth’s car. “One theory was that the queen was trapped in my car and the swarm were following,” Mrs Howarth said.
“But they couldn’t find the queen anywhere so I’ve no idea if that was right,” she further added.
Apparently, the incidents remain unsolved but Mrs Howarth did not give them much thoughts. “I still don’t really understand why because they couldn’t see the queen anywhere. Perhaps they just like the heat of my car,” she ended the interview with a witty remark.
Hopefully, the bees could find their missing queen as soon as possible!
