Swarm gathers on a Bee-M-W

Bees congregate on a car. [FCFRD]

When someone contacted the West Annandale Fire Station about a bee swarm on a BMW parked at an office complex April 30, Capt. Dave Weand know what to do.

“At times, people call the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department for a variety of non-fire or emergency medical situations – usually when they can’t think of who else to call,” Weand wrote on the FCFRD’s news blog.

Weand [FCFRD]

A bee swarm is “normally not our thing, Weand said, but as luck would have, I am a hobbyist beekeeper!” Weand told WAMU he graduated from Fairfax Beekeepers’ “bee school” and has two hives at home.

The Fire Department’s Station 23, on Little River Turnpike, sent a truck out, and Weand “confirmed it was a swarm that had used this car as a resting point waiting for their scouts to find them a new home. I was going to contact local beekeepers to find someone to come collect them, but the building manager had already contacted someone,” he said. “This allows the bees to be captured and saved rather than killed.”

“Bee swarms are usually docile and not going to sting you,” Weand said. “They are full of honey and saving their energy to build a new home. Bees will follow the pheromones of their queen and make a ball around her.”

“Bees aren’t doing so well in America,” Weand told WAMU. “Anytime there’s a chance to help them thrive we should be doing that, rather than trying to squish or spray them.”

The Northern Virginia Beekeepers Association urges people who encounter a swarm to report it on the group’s online swarm alert form.