Bees trap customers in L.A. liquor store

Netscape News ^ | 11/29/2002 | No byline

[Skooz]

Bees trap customers in L.A. liquor store

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Marauding bees held shoppers hostage inside a Los Angeles liquor store for two hours on Thanksgiving while engaging firefighters in a tense standoff, officials said Friday.

The bees showed up suddenly at the front door of Sam's Mini Market in the northern Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth at about 11 a.m. Thursday as customers were making last-minute holiday purchases, said store owner Kawaljit Singh.

"A lot of them came in a second," Singh told Reuters. "One customer, he was trying to walk out and he said, 'Look at that!' There was a dark cloud."

The customer slammed the door shut and the siege began.

The bees, which had built a hive under the liquor store sign, trapped Singh, two customers and an employee inside the store for about two hours as firefighters repeatedly doused the insects with firefighting foam.

"All of them got dead but they were still coming from somewhere," Singh said, adding that as one swarm of bees was killed, another wave would appear..

"We would foam some of them and the bees would leave and then come back. It became a question of who can outlast the other?" fire department spokesman Bob Collis said.

The fire crew gave the bees one last soaking and urged customers to make a run for it at around 1 p.m. PST, then left Singh to battle the stragglers, Collis said.

"We assumed they were not the Africanized type because they were not aggressive -- they were just flying around," Collis said.

After mopping up gallons of foam and bees bodies, Singh attacked the hive one last time -- this time with a can of bug spray from his own shelves.

"That worked pretty good," he said. "I hope they don't come back. We don't want them."

© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.

[Scully]

Musta been after the mead...

[Rockitz]

Imagine the husband trying to explain to the wife why he was 2 hours late and the turkey dinner was held up and overdone. Honey really! I was held hostage at the liquor store by a swarm of maurading bees!! LOL!

Leno used that as a joke on the Tonight Show. You should get royalties.

[2sheep]

This is not the usual time of year for honeybees to swarm, they should be bedding down for winter.  Honeybees don't sting when they swarm.  If someone stuck a stick in a hive and riled them, that is another matter and that is not a swarm.  That is attacking in self-defense of the hive.

We'll put this in our file under:  "Aberrant Animal Behavior"

Wonder what's up....an earthquake or ...?

[Cobra64]

Yes, I thought the same thing about PETA. I just got into Irvine, CA this evening They don't even sell food here. Peanut butter brittle, nuts, grain, soy, and tofu. My son said it seems that they "eat bird food in CA." Maybe that, and the multi-millionaires from Hollywood explains why this state is the most liberal bastion in the country.