City Hall all Abuzz About Bees
Beehive boxes on the roof of City Hall, believed to be the source of this afternoon's swarm on George Street- photo 250News
Click on photo to hear bee keeper George Bomford talk about the incident
Prince George, B.C.- While some may argue over whether City Hall is or isn't a beehive of activity, today, it really was.
Earlier in the afternoon, George Street was all abuzz as thousands of honey bees had swarmed in front of the Ramada Hotel.
Turns out they had come from one of two bee hives located on the roof of City Hall.
The hives were a "green initiative" to help with pollination.
Bee Keeper George Bomford says it is likely the hives were overcrowded, and a few thousand of the bees decided it was time to find a new home.
They had formed a ball in an elm tree at the corner of 5th and George street, then some ( hundreds) pooled on the roadway. It was only moments later that a vehicle ran over that pool, killing hundreds of bees, and causing mass confusion among the rest in the swarm.
"Bees will send out scouts to find a new place to live" says Bomford. He says the swarm would have become confused when so many of their hive were killed.
He calmed the situation by presenting hive forms, a familiar site and smell for the bees who calmed once they were on the honeycomb.
Comments
Umm he means he hasn’t checked for queen cells in awhile and a new queen hatched and took a few with her.
Bees don’t swarm without a queen.
The Bees were just mimicking how divided City council is.. They just took it to the streets to show the people
They probably Just got their tax bill from the city and felt the sting of city hall and decided to return the favour
I think the experiment of bees at City hall is a bust. Not something I want to be anywhere near!!!
For heaven sake–get serious—Who bought these bees? Us, the taxpayers?
Spend OUR money wisely-is that too hard for you?
Those bee boxes sure are high up. Sure hope those bees don’t fall and hurt themselves.
To Bee or not to Bee, that is the question;
I wonder how many eppi-pens city hall purchases yearly?
I wonder if these bees came from one of my neighbours? He had bee hives in town for the past 2 years, a huge concern for everyone as several kids were allergic enough to have epi-pens, but there is no bylaw restricting bee hives in city limits. We were chased away from our bbq and patio set while eating dinner several times as we were swarmed, and stung while performing yardwork in our backyard. The neighbour also happens to work for the city, and the hives mysteriously were never put out this year.
Honey bee’s are really not all that aggressive. No where near as aggressive as hornets, or wasps.
In any event the City should get out of the Bee business, and back into running the City.
I think that we have some serious management problems at the City.
It takes something very alarming to make a domestic honey bee sting. We used to try to get stung as kids in the Okanagan and 9 times out of 10 we couldn’t entice the honey bee to sting, and that was a wild honey bee, not a domesticated one. For people to be alarmed that there are hives near them is just silly. And most people who are allergic to bee stings are usually allergic to only 1 type of bee, usually a yellow jacket, not a honey bee. And a bumblebee isn’t a true honey bee, so that doesn’t count.
Even the bees don’t like City Hall. They run like crazy from there. Musta got stung by City Hall too..
Milking cows and chickens may be next
Walter198. I don’t think even city staff would be silly enough to put cows on the roof of city hall. Chickens however might be within their reason. And they WILL fall off and get hurt.
Maybe we can turn City Hall into another Ark just incase of a suddent flood.
Unbelievable!!!!
Let it Bee!
Maybe City Hall got a honey of a deal.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
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