Bees Swarm Parked Car, Make It Their Hive, Driver Handles It Surprisingly Well

Mike Cohen, a Montreal man and writer for the Montreal paper The Suburban, parked his car at the corner of President Kennedy and McGill College Aves on June 9. He came back to his vehicle to an astonishing sight. According to CTV News Montreal, the man had only been gone for approximately an hour when he returned to find a swarm of people around his car. They all had cell phones out taking videos and pictures. When he approached his parked car he noticed thousands of bees were swarming the vehicle.

One bystander caught the following video of the bee incident on their cellphone.

After realizing the situation, and that there was no way he could drive this vehicle, Cohen explains that he called 9-1-1. He said the operator sounded uncertain about how exactly to respond so sent the fire department. Once the firefighters arrive they were unable to help and told Cohen to call an exterminator. By this time police were on the scene to keep bystanders at bay. Meanwhile, Cohen started calling exterminators asking about bee removal. Each exterminator he called explained that they simply could not kill bees and that he needed a “bee expert.”

Bee experts are not listed in the phone book, so the firemen called their supervisor. Fortunately, the supervisor was able to locate a group called Miel Montreal that deals with bees. Miel Montreal is an organization dedicated to protecting bees and providing biodiversity education to the community. In about an hour, the group was on the scene and safely removed the bees.

Cohen describes the removal as follows:

“The bee patrol used towels and brushes to gently move all of the bees into the box and then some kind of smoke concoction to empty the last of them.”

The bees were then taken to a safe place were they could continue their duties creating delicious honey and pollinating flowers.

A similar event took place this month in Oxford, England. However, those bees were not so fortunate. The Oxford man came under fire after he drove his bee covered vehicle multiple times through a car wash subsequently killing all the bees.

Bees are vital to our eco system hence why exterminators refuse to kill them. However, the fear of a bee swarm is understandable, so would you have had the patience and foresight to maintain your composure long enough to get the bees safely removed from your parked car by bee handlers?