How loyal are bees to their queen? Turns out incredibly.
A swarm of bees in Wales followed a Mitsubishi Outlander SUV for two days after their queen apparently became trapped inside.
According to CNN, Carol Howarth, 68, left a nearby nature reserve with a queen bee trapped in her car.
For the next two days, a swarm of approximately 20,000 bees followed her.
On Sunday, the swarm was spotted by local park ranger Tom Moses, who called the sight “spectacular,” according to the BBC. He called the swarm, which was clustered toward the back right quadrant of the vehicle a “big brown splodge.”
"It was quite spectacular to see. There were a lot of people in town and when they were coming past they were really amazed by it, cars [were] slowing down and people [were] taking pictures of it," he told the BBC.
Moses was able to get local beekeepers to gather many of the insects.
One of them was Roger Burns who speculated as to why the bees followed the car.
“We think the queen had been attracted to something in the car, perhaps something sweet, and had gotten into a gap on the boot’s wiper blade or perhaps the hinge,” Burns told British newspaper Metro. He also said he got stung 15-20 times.
That was not the end, however.
On Monday, the bees were back, and the beekeepers were called again.
“I have been a beekeeping for 30 years and I have never seen a swarm do that,” Burns said. “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.”
