A stunned shop manager feared they would have to abandon their brand new car after finding thousands of bees swarming over the bodywork.
Kass Thomas left the bright orange Vauxhall Mokka in a carpark before discovering that the huge swarm of stinging insects had made it their temporary home.
The 22-year-old, who uses they/them pronouns, had bought the 4×4 motor just three days before the incident, in Northwich, Cheshire.
And after being confronted by the mounds of buzzing insects, shocked Kass joked: “How much is this car worth?’ The bees can have it.”
Luckily, concerned business owners had alerted a pest control expert soon after the bees arrived, and he managed to usher them into a hive using smoke.
Thankful Kass was then able to drive away unhurt from the incident roughly eight hours later. They said: “When I was returning to my car, I was thinking ‘There are loads of bees about, that’s weird. Maybe there is a hive nearby?’
“And when I turned up at the carpark, I then found it was covered in them. I had bought it on Saturday, and I was starting to think ‘How much is this car worth?’ The bees can have it’ at that point.
“But my partner is extremely fond of bees. They said it was the best thing ever to happen.”
Kass, from Knutsford, Cheshire, said they had gone to a public carpark in Northwich on Monday (June 26) at 8.45am prior to the incident.
But just a few hours later, locals had begun noticing that the huge swarm of bees had attached themselves to their car and covered most of the bodywork.
Kass said: “According to passersby, the bees started gathering there from 10.30am, so they were there for several hours.
“I returned to my car at about 2pm. There was a pest expert called Chris Bowyer spraying them with smoke and leading them into this hive. From what Chris said, it was very much a chance encounter.
“The queen probably got tired and then decided to rest on the car, and the swarm followed her. They thought the car was a comfortable place to stay.”
Kass said there were still bees buzzing around the car when they later returned just after 5pm, forcing them to call in the pest expert again before driving off.
They added: “It was about 6pm when I finally got the car back. But there were still some inside.”
Beekeepers have warned that Britain is likely to see a spike in swarms during the summer as the insects move around more due to the hot weather.
Last month, the British Beekeeping Association said searches on its website on the “swarm” page were up 19 per cent and the “find a beekeeper page” traffic was up by 33 per cent.
