It's Like a Storm of Bees at a Wisconsin Gas Station

I went to a Popeyes Chicken drive-thru in Milwaukee Wisconsin last week. About 20 bees buzzed into the car while I had the window down placing the order. Wife freaked out.

But the bees are not the aggressive kind. Once you start driving and let the rear windows down, out they go. Never seen so many as I have this year.

Wasn't there a thread a few months ago about bees becoming extinct, or something?

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: panoz77
Bees in a swarm looking for a new home, I actually witnessed this only once behind my house, really cool to see in person.

Yeah, it usually has to do with hive populations vs hive efficiency. The queen stops givin off her pheremones and does the bolt looking for a new place to establish a hive.

Some bees stay and a new queen emerges, but some follow the old queen to new digs. Reduces the total population in both locations to something more sustainable. Wonder of nature sort of stuff.

By the way, the bees aren't likely to attack when swarming like this. They are more interested in not getting left out in the move.

I figured you would know a lot about hive mentality. Thanks for not disappointing me.

originally posted by: KTemplar
a reply to: KKLOCO

Know those roads very well, seems I dipped before you!

🥂 sister!

It’s a small worl after all.

a reply to: KKLOCO

I’ll drink to that 😊

a reply to: Rezlooper

Oh yes, I have seen this before.


I bought six 55 gallon drums (full cover with rings) that used to hold honey from a cookie factory. All of them still had a little bit honey in them... over 5 gallons worth between the six drums once drained.

How do I know that?

I let them sit in the sun in the back of the truck and it was a hot day. I wanted to clean them out and use them for storage. We opened the top of the first one and let the honey residue pour into a 5 gallon food grade bucket. Then the next, then the next.

Bees started swarming... a few at first but the numbers grew and grew. We were able to get all 6 drained but the bees kept coming. I had to pull the truck with the barrels in the back into the garage and shut the door.

Some of the honey had spilled onto the ground outside. There was a swarm like that for hours.

originally posted by: NoCorruptionAllowed

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: panoz77
Bees in a swarm looking for a new home, I actually witnessed this only once behind my house, really cool to see in person.

Yeah, it usually has to do with hive populations vs hive efficiency. The queen stops givin off her pheremones and does the bolt looking for a new place to establish a hive.

Some bees stay and a new queen emerges, but some follow the old queen to new digs. Reduces the total population in both locations to something more sustainable. Wonder of nature sort of stuff.

By the way, the bees aren't likely to attack when swarming like this. They are more interested in not getting left out in the move.

I figured you would know a lot about hive mentality. Thanks for not disappointing me.

Oh, do you only have the one brain? Must be strange...

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: Rezlooper

Are we sure they were bees? They could have been wasps, yellowjackets, hornets...

Not even sure. Just going off what the lady in video said.

Witnessed this on a soccer field right across my house a couple years ago. When my husband came home from work he couldn't even leave the car. A local beekeeper came and placed an empty hive, all the bees went inside as soon as the sun went down. After that he moved the hive to a less populated area and set them free.

a reply to: Rezlooper

OK..time to make a BEE NADO MOVIE!!