A Perthshire woman was unable to leave her home as tens of thousands of bees swarmed outside her home.
Jane Deans, from Methven, now hopes the bees can be saved, having had a large contingent of the winged insects on her roof in Church Lane for the past 40 years.
The bee lover uses honey and beeswax to make soap.
But on Tuesday afternoon they took to the skies in huge numbers because their original hive may have grown too big.
Bees have lived in the house for 40 years
Jane says she was told that around 30,000 to 40,000 bees were swarming around her house in their quest for a new home.
The 50-year-old, who runs bath and body products business Barefoot Bubbles from a her Methven home, said: “I had fully intended spending the afternoon in the workshop today.
“However, bees happened and it’s taken up most of the afternoon one way or another.
“We’ve had bees living under the tiles at the back of our roof for over 40 years, quite happily.
“We’ve never considered doing anything about them because they’ve never been any bother, and because we need bees.
“I use honey and beeswax in some of my soaps.”
She added: “Today, they apparently decided that their hive had become too big, and they have split, with some of them deciding to move round to the front of the house.
“The thing is, they’ve decided to live under the tiles between my daughters’ bedroom windows.
“I have a beekeeper coming to see if he can do anything.
“Unfortunately, because of where they are, if he can’t move them, then for the safety of the girls, we will have to get pest control out to exterminate, which I really don’t want to do – they’re such fascinating and necessary wee creatures.”
Jane says she was unable to leave the house for around half an hour while the bees swarmed.
Bees have never caused us any harm
She added: “The hive is between the tiles and the sarking of the roof.
“We’ve just let them be, because they’ve not caused us any harm, and we need bees.
“It’d be fine if they had just stayed in their original house.
“I’ve seen a number of bees the last few days, looking at the tiles on the front of the house, and I thought they were looking to move.”
She said: “Sadly it’s looking like we might not be able to save them.
“It’s looking like they’re not able to be retrieved, and because we regularly get young bees falling off the roof onto the ground which have deformed wings, it means there is disease in the hive, which causes catastrophic deformation to the wings.
“So it’s looking like we will have to call pest control to have them exterminated.”
Conversation