Huge bee swarm takes over light pole, bicycles in downtown Chicago

CHICAGO, June 7 (UPI) -- A crowd of onlookers gathered in downtown Chicago to take in an unusual sight: a swarm of bees clinging to a light pole and two bikes locked to the pole.

The bees gathered Monday afternoon on the light pole near the Michigan Avenue Divvy station and prevented bicycle access for two unlucky cyclists who had locked their bikes up to the pole.

Jana Kinsman of Bike-A-Bee arrived on the scene about 2 p.m. to scoop up the bees and relocate them to a farm at the organization's headquarters.

Kinsman said the swarm was likely the result of a new queen being born at a nearby hive, leading the old queen to go off in search of a new home.

Sarah Lorraine Bradley, whose bike was one of those covered in bees, took the incident in stride.

"If any of you saw or heard about the [bizarre] bee swarm downtown, the queen chose my bike to start a hive. What a weird lovely thing. Good omens! Thank you Bike a bee for safely moving the hive and for the bike rescue!" she wrote in a Facebook post.

Namaan Gambill, a beekeeper with the Westside Bee Boyz, said the downtown bees were unlikely to pose any danger to onlookers.

"They don't have anything to fight for, so they're really really gentle," he told WGN-TV. "It's a natural reproduction of a hive is all that it is."