Swarming bees shut museum down

Museum Shuts at Swarming Bees Get the Needle

By Owen Fairclough, PA News


A national needlework exhibition was forced to close its doors today after thousands of honey bees were discovered nesting in the building.

The Forge Hill Museum in Redditch, Worcestershire, has been shut until further notice while the gigantic swarm is evicted from three 30ft chimneys.

Removing the unwelcome guests is expected to take several weeks and will involve putting up scaffolding and covering vents around the building with special mesh to ensure they do not return.

Staff took the decision to close the 200-year-old forge after three employees were stung and visitors browsing needlework displays had to contend with bees dropping on to the exhibition space.

Ken Watkins, Redditch Borough Council's sports and leisure services manager, said: "We believe the chimneys are stuffed with thousands and thousands of bees and they keep dropping on to the exhibition space as they are pushed out.

"It has been almost like a cartoon this week, as we've regularly had these enormous swarms flying around outside for hours on end." Some swarms had gathered in balls.

Mr Watkins said that as honey bees, the insects were protected by law, though they may be destroyed where they were considered a threat. In this case they would be collected by bee keepers.

He joked: "It would be a shame to destroy them because we could probably do a good line in honey."

Today's closure caps an unfortunate week for the museum, which was hit by a lightning bolt during violent thunderstorms on Thursday afternoon, knocking out the telephone system.

The mill is currently hosting the Charles Henry Foyle Needlework exhibition, displaying entries by textile students from around the UK who are competing for a £2,000 cash prize.

It is due to run until October 10, once the building is reopened.