A man who hung up his clothes to dry has been left dumbfounded after realising that a swarm of bees destroyed one of his T-shirts.
The footage from Seng Thai’s home in Battambang, northwestern Cambodia, reveals the thousands of pollinators not only gathered on the pink piece of clothing. The swarm also gnawed a 25-centimetre hole into the batik fashion item.
Seng said: “I noticed a few bees coming in and out of our old cabinet but I didn’t mind them. While I was looking for a shirt, I checked inside and found the big ball. My shirt was destroyed too.”
Dr Robert Brodschneider from the Institute of Biology at Graz University, Austria, told NewsX: “That’s remarkable! it’s obvious that the bees have been at this spot for several days as they’ve already started to build combs.”
Dr Brodschneider – whose research focuses on the monitoring of honeybee colony losses – added: “The bees have chosen this location as their home and built a nest. This is anything but ideal since honeybees are cavity-nesting insects.”
Octavio Re – who is a biologist and beekeeper in Mallin in Argentine’s central Cordoba province – assumes that the filmed insects are western honeybees (Apis mellifera).
Speaking to NewsX, Octavio said: “It is possible to see that, between the two garments, they are building honeycombs or nests.”
He explained: “Analysing it from a logical point of view, I can say that the holes are there for the growth of the population. They did that to have more space.”
Octavio concluded: “It is still something that is not seen very often, so it is curious.”
Herbert Grafl runs an organic apiary in Schattendorf, eastern Austria. Herbert also heads the Association of Beekeepers in Burgenland.
Asked by NewsX to evaluate the incident, he said: “The swarm has been sitting there for a while. You can see the freshly built honeycombs. Usually, a swarm would use such a location only to gather before relocating somewhere else.”
Herbert suspects that this colony eventually decided to settle on the clothesline after having been unable to find an appropriate spot.
Vienna-based apiarist Dr Matthias Kopetzky agrees. He told News X: “If you watch the video carefully, you realise that the swarm settled down between two T-shirts. This does make sense. They probably could not find a more suitable location. The two pieces of clothing offer them cave-like conditions.
Dr Kopetzky – who recently received an award for his vinegar-honey syrup Oxymel – added: “The fact that they’ve already built honeycombs tells us that they’ve surely been there for several days.”