The South College Shopping Center is a bit quieter tonight after being quite the buzz today.
A parking spot remains blocked off as a few bees swarm a plant. This morning was a completely different scene as dark clouds came rolling into Lafayette, carrying rain, but this cloud was different. Thousands of bees came flying through the parking lot.
“It looked like a big dust storm that came up all of a sudden, and the swarm slowly came around, and it was thousands of bees,” said Alicia Robertson, owner of Magnolia Salon and Spa.
Robertson said she and many of the clients continued to watch as others filmed. “It started as a few flies. Then, all of a sudden, it was this huge black swarm. It was one of the most amazing things to see. A one-in-a-million thing that most people will never see.”
Josh Hardeay, a Musso employee, was one of many filming the swarm. Hardeay grew up living in the country and has seen this before.
“Once the queen’s colony, the hive, is too full, she’ll leave. She’ll go start another hive, and half the colony leaves with her, but the other half stays. So, she may have just gotten tired, and her colony protected her,” explained Hardeay.
Within 45 minutes of the swarm’s arrival. a beekeeper came to collect the queen and her workers.
Hardeay says they’ll stay on a honey farm. “I’m just happy all of the bees are okay and not dead.”
The remaining bees in the parking lot will either leave to their old hive or die.
