Swarm of bees lays siege to Leeds community

The 2,000-strong honeybee swarm began hovering over Firthfields Early Years Centre and the adjoining home of the Garforth Neighbourhood Elders Team (NET) on Wednesday afternoon.

Youngsters attending the early years centre were ushered indoors following the arrival of the unwelcome visitors.

The bees continued to cause problems yesterday, with a coffee morning having to be cancelled at the Dover Street base of Garforth NET.

Garforth NET centre manager Monica Walker said: “The swarm was absolutely massive and it was making a horrendous noise. The whole situation was really quite frightening.

“At first the bees were hovering about a metre above our building. We had some volunteers working in our garden and they came inside pretty sharpish. Then, yesterday morning, the bees had attached themselves to the hedges in our pond area.

“There’s a ginnel which runs alongside the hedges and we had to put signs up warning people to keep out.”

Local beekeeper Chris Clowes was called in and last night he was due to remove the bees using specially-constructed boxes before taking them to one of his hives.

Mr Clowes said the bees would have been looking for a suitable location to set up a new colony when they descended on Dover Street.