A RESTAURANT in Dublin yesterday got rid of some unwanted visitors when expert handlers removed a swarm of some 25,000 bees from an outside wall.
The honey bees, which had gathered on the side of the Indian Ocean restaurant on Montague Street, were removed using smoke and a cardboard box.
Dublin beekeeper John Killian, who relocated the bees along with Ben Myers, said yesterday: “It was a small swarm, with in the region of 25-30,000 bees,” adding “a full swarm would consist of approximately 60,000”.
He said that the bees had now been placed in a hive, but that it would take a lot of nourishing for them to develop into a colony.
“It is difficult for a small stock to develop into a colony as there is only a few flying bees to bring in the pollen.”
Mr Killian, a former chairman of the County Dublin Beekeepers Association, said he believed the bees may have come from a nearby chimney as there were a lot of bees swarming around it.
He added that a nearby shopkeeper on Montague Street had first alerted them to the swarm outside the restaurant.