It's like "The Mist," but with bees

More than a million honeybees swarmed the side of Main Street's A&L Accessories building on Monday, warranting the help of Perryville bee rescue and removal experts Gary and Joyce Taylor.

Danville Fire Chief Woody Ball said the fire station was alerted at 4:48 p.m. that several people inside the store could not exit because of the bees.

"They don't know what time these bees showed up, but an employee called and said a customer did not want to come outside because of the bees," said Ball. "They called the code inspector who then called me. At first they said they were bumblebees, which is a whole other ball game."

Ball said the battalion chief arrived on the scene and realized they needed some bee backup.

"We didn't want to just hose the bees off the side of the building because they are so vital to our world's ecosystem," said Ball. "They aren't hurting anybody, and we're willing to stay here with it and let them collect the bees."

According to Ball, they called several beekeepers who were reluctant to come and finally called on the Taylors who have experience rescuing and keeping bees.

"Dispatch got ahold of one gentleman, but he was a little intimidated by it," said Ball. "I was able to make contact with these folks who have been keeping bees a long time and are part of the Boyle County Farmers Market."

"A queen bee died, and these bees followed another queen bee that took her place, and she's looking for a place to start a colony," said Ball. "This is where she landed and it looked like a good spot, so that's where the rest of the bees landed."

Ball noted that it is a hazard to have bees swarm in downtown, and said first responders were well-prepared with emergency medical service in place. On a nearby stretcher, two hypodermic needles were prepared with epinephrine in case of an emergency.

"A lot of people are allergic to bee stings, so we have EMS on the scene just in case somebody has a bee sting," said Ball. "We want to be prepared to avoid anyone going into anaphylactic shock."

Covered in head to toe protective clothing, complete with netting around the face, the Taylors mounted ladders with wooden hives and scooped the bees gently into the hives.

Once they managed to collect the majority of bees into the hive, they mounted the ladder once again with an apparatus resembling a vacuum machine to suck the bees into an oversized chamber.

According to Ball, the vacuum is designed to collect the bees unhurt.

A crowd, including Mayor Bernie Hunstad, gathered to watch the firefighters and bee rescuers collect the bees. Like most of the crowd, Hunstad seemed enthralled by the scene of the beekeepers working in a cloud of thousands of swarming bees, and marveled at the sight with onlookers.

"It was a pretty dull day until about an hour ago," joked Hunstad. "Sometimes we don't realize we're closer to nature than we're aware."

The fire department closed the eastbound lanes of Main Street between Third and Fourth Streets to allow firefighters and beekeepers to work, and to keep the public safe.

"It's a good outcome for everyone," said Ball. "No one is hurt, the bees are rescued and the Taylors will have some nice honey to sell at the farmers market."

Talon wrote:Reminds me of this lulzlzulluluul

https://youtu.be/mUR14_ry1Zo?t=23s

Honor wrote:

Talon wrote:Reminds me of this lulzlzulluluul

https://youtu.be/mUR14_ry1Zo?t=23s

I was always curious if that would work in real life or not...