Thousands of bees take over village post box

Villagers of Dothan on Anglesey had a shock when their local post box was blocked by thousands of bees.Residents alerted the nearest post office in Llangefni as well as the Anglesey Beekeepers Association and they were safely removed and rehomed on Sunday.Though it might appear to be an unusual place for bees to nest, post boxes present the ideal conditions for beehives, said John Bowles, secretary of the Anglesey Beekeepers Association.

Mr Bowles said: "The call came in on Saturday and a nearby beekeeper was sent to remove the bees from the mailbox the next day. It's not something we normally deal with but it's not unheard of for bees to nest in mailboxes."They're ideal spaces for them in a way because they're dry and sheltered - it's natural that they should choose to nest in one. What happens eventually is that the space they have chosen becomes too confined and then around half of them leave to find a new home."We normally put a box beneath the hive, knock the hive into the box and then turn the hive upside down. The rest of the bees then enter the hive."They're quite sedate at this point because they're nourished; they're not as defensive as they can be when their hives are disturbed, though we do always wear our beekeeping suits just in case."In terms of getting them out of the post box, once the door was open, we would have gently removed them by hand as we would if they were on a tree or anywhere else."The beekeeper would then have taken them to a bee box, either their own or someone else's. This would have to be over three miles from where they were initially removed as they would otherwise try to return."