JOHNSTON, Pa. — When a woman returned from her lunch break she was struck by all the buzz around her pickup -- a one-foot-tall swarm of honeybees had taken up residence in the cab of the truck.
Crystal Smith said she and a co-worker spent only 15 minutes inside the buffet restaurant before employees warned her that she wouldn’t be driving back to work anytime soon. Police were alerted and they called in beekeeper Greg Berkebile to assist in their removal.
Berkebile surmised that a queen bee, recently ousted from her hive, decided to start a new home in Smith’s white pickup and floated through the open back window. Thousands of worker bees followed, attracted to the pheromones emitted by the queen. Wherever a queen bee decides to land, the workers pile on.
Berkebile arrived on the scene quickly by forgoing a run for his equipment. Working without his smoke gun, he lit one of Smith’s cigarettes inside the truck, using it to confuse the bees and shoo them outside.
“You don’t move the bees,” Berkebile said. “The bees move the bees.”
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