NYPD Vacuums Up Roughly 30,000 Bees In Manhattan, Queens

May 28, 2019, 11:42 a.m.

While the bees have been contained for now, we have reached peak swarm season.

Bees assemble.

Bees assemble.

While you were away this weekend, battling the toxic jellyfish or tracking our local shark celebrity, the bees moved in, their huge humming throngs flooding the city.

Bees?!

Bees!!! Everybody's getting bees. Thousands upon thousands of bees, laying siege to retail outlets and street corners alike, injuring none but (I bet) terrifying many.

via GIPHY


According to NYPD Bees, responders removed nearly 30,000 bees from Queens and Manhattan on Monday, clearing two downtown swarms comprising 8,000 bees and one 20,000-bee swarm in Sunnyside, Queens. In Manhattan, a cascade of bees spilled from a municipal planter on Broadway between John Street and Maiden Lane, menacing shoppers at the adjacent Urban Outfitters with a low static buzz.

Over in Queens, a considerably larger swarm clustered on the side of a building on 45th Street, waylaying pedestrians who likely feared that walking too close could raise a cloud of enraged stingers.

It was clearly a "bee-zy"—ha ha, BEES.—holiday weekend for the Bee Squad, which dispatched officers to vacuum up the swarms and transport them to a more hospitable home. (The Manhattan bees moved to the Hudson Valley, like so many aging millennials you know; presumably, the Queens bees went with them, although the NYPD has not confirmed their precise location.)

While the bees have been contained for now, we have reached peak swarm season (late spring), meaning you should keep an eye out for the roving droves still buzzing around, looking for suitable spots to build their hives. If you see any rogue zoomers, the NYPD asks that you alert them to the situation, because we all know how Wicker Man ends and nobody wants to go that way! (Just kidding, the bees are dying at alarming rates.)

via GIPHY