This is the moment “thousands” of bees descended in a swarm on a Fife town.
Cupar man Scott Jessiman looked on in amazement as a huge number of the flying insects appeared “out of nowhere” in the Dalgairn area where his father lives on Sunday.
The 35-year-old photographer was reading a book in his dad’s house when he noticed the swarm of honey bees appear at about 1.30pm.
They flew around the area for about 20 minutes before moving on.
Mr Jessiman said: “I was just basically sitting reading a book in the house. I looked out the back window and was like, ‘what the hell is that in the sky?’
“And then it just got worse and worse and worse. They were just everywhere, absolutely everywhere, all over the greenhouse.
“It was at about 1.30pm on Sunday, they were probably around for about 15 to 20 minutes and then dispersed. Life went back to normal.
“They were in their thousands by looks of things. There was thousands and thousands.
“I have no idea where they came from. I just kind of looked out and they had all come out of somewhere. There was one rogue one that ended up flying into the house.
“I am not normally fussed about creepy-crawlies, but I was not keen to head outside as you would imagine. I was just flabbergasted, I have never seen anything like it. It was a once in a lifetime moment.”
Honey bees are known to move on from old nests to establish new ones at this time of year.
With their queen at the helm, the swarm will move as one unit; often temporarily settling for up to two days as they seek out new places to live.
Vanessa Hartley of Perth-based Andy Law Pest Control said the activity is normal for honey bees at this time of the year and that the insects are “harmless”.
She said: “With bees, the swarm is a true swarm. It is a higher mass of bees on the way with a queen at the centre of them.
“The honey bee queen will leave the existing nest and take the worker bees with her and when bees establish a new nest they come as a ready-made population. There is the queen with her workers, they all move, all the bees altogether.
“The queen will settle and workers will settle with her. At the centre of a mass of bees can be on a shop window or a chimney. They settle and look for a new home.
“It is incredible. It is very alarming for people but they are actually harmless.
“We always ask people to leave honey bee nests alone, they are not like wasps, not half as aggressive
“They’ll settle on a position for about 24-48 hours. If you are going to get stung, it is going to be at the end of that time scale.
“They are not swarming to attack anyone. They will move on. We have a beekeeper who will go and try and collect the swarm.”
