20,000 bees chase woman's car for two days to save their queen

Worker bees are the epitome of loyalty. After a queen bee is selected and nurtured, a group of worker bees takes on the task of caring for her, ensuring she is fed and groomed. Their unwavering commitment was truly tested when they pursued a 65-year-old woman’s Mitsubishi Outlander for two days to rescue their queen trapped in the car's trunk.

Carol Howarth, 65, got quite the surprise when 20,000 bees swarmed her car after a visit to a nature reserve, according to CNN. Unbeknownst to her, she had picked up an unexpected passenger: the queen bee. She only realized something was amiss when the bees continued to cling to her car while she shopped in Haverfordwest, Wales. These dedicated bees followed her vehicle for over 48 hours.

Local ranger Tom Moses saw the entire spectacle and couldn’t resist sharing an entertaining play-by-play on his Facebook page, calling it "Bee-rilliant swarmathon." He detailed the efforts to safely move the bees without harming them, writing: "Driving through town noticed this going on outside the Lower Three Crowns and couldn't resist getting involved! (bees need our help and I worried that some idiot would come to pour boiling water over them or something stupid!)."

Moses, a Pembrokeshire Coast National Park ranger, called in reinforcements from the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association to handle the situation. "Roger the beekeeper #1 appeared with a box to put them in and swept some in, then left for a dinner date leaving me backing up Andrew the (rusty) beekeeper #2 (ie watching him and offering encouragement)," he recounted. "At first, bees nicely started going into the box. Stung. Then they started to come out again. Hmmmmm. Had a beer. Stung. Andrew doing a great job, bees in. Stung. Then they were coming out again. Wheres the Queen? In the box, or hiding in the crack between boot and car panel? Stung again."

"Spoke to Jeremy beekeeper #3 - on Eurostar, but said he'd send help. A drunk bloke from the pub went and swept a load of bees off the car with a hand looking for the queen, got stung loads pfffft... Beekeeper #4 (man with no name) turned up with a full suit and Smokey thing, stung again, twice - why do they just go for your head? All was under control, so buggered off home before stung again. 3 hours were well spent, and avoided painting for a bit! The best thing to happen in Haverfordwest for years - should get a load of hives in Castle Square," Moses concluded. Five beekeepers, park wardens, and passersby spent hours trying to get the bees safely into a cardboard box to transport them away.

However, shortly after they painstakingly managed to achieve this feat, the wind blew off the lid of the box and the queen once again became lodged in the car’s rear compartment. "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," Roger Burns, from Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association, told the Milford Mercury. "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."

This article was originally published on October 1, 2020. It has since been updated.