A swarm of bees landed on a New York City hot dog stand on Tuesday, shutting down part of a street as police used a special vacuum to remove them.
About 25,000 bees landed on the top of a hot dog stand in Times Square around 2 p.m., attracting onlookers from the street, the Associated Press reports. Thousands followed along online as a Reuters livestream showed the bees getting removed.
An NYPD officer wearing a beekeeper’s net removed the bees with a vacuum cleaner. According to the NYPDBees Twitter account, the official account for the department’s beekeeper, the bees were from an overcrowded hive and landed on the hot dog stand as a way to get temporary residence. The beekeeper noted that the “very humid day” likely caused the bees to relocate.
Work, errands and other tasks came to a pause at the busy Midtown Manhattan intersection as people were abuzz about the bees on Twitter.
The NYPD said “no tourist was harmed and no bee was left behind” in a tweet.
