From gigs across the city to the FA Cup Final, the nice weather drew out big crowds in the city centre this weekend. The sunshine also saw a huge swarm of bees descend onto a popular eatery in town.
Northern Quarter café Idle Hands was visited by tens of thousands of honey bees on Saturday afternoon (June 3) as United played against City in Wembley.
The swarm of bees took over the cafe’s outdoor seating area, with photographs taken by the M.E.N’s Andrew Stuart showing the collection of bees gathered underneath and around one of the tables.
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The incident even led to the table being isolated away from the rest of the seating area, on the corner of Dale Street and Tariff Street, with a sign warning: “Watch out! Bee cluster.”
The specialty coffee shop called in the team at Manchester Honey Company, who came to the rescue to humanely retrieve the bees.
Posting on Instagram, Idle Hands wrote: “So, fun day at the shop today, with thousands of bees moving home and deciding to drop in on our shop and cluster under one of our tables (now forever to be known as the bee table) whilst on their journey.
“Massive thanks to @manchesterhoneycompany for coming and safely taking them away to a far more suitable home. And to @andrewstuart1 for capturing the event so well!”
Speaking to the M.E.N, beekeeper Gareth Trehearn, who co-runs the Manchester Honey Company with his wife, said: "Someone gave me a call to say they had a swarm outside the shop and asked us to come and collect them. It’s been a very busy year for swarms and all the colonies are really bursting."
Gareth, who is based in Sale Moor, said it took him about an hour to safely gather the bees up. He added: “I’ve got about 130 colonies all across Manchester so I’ll take that swarm and put them into one of my apiaries, where we store the bees. They will go on foraging for the rest of the year and grow up their numbers. During the first year, we won’t take any honey off them as they need it to survive throughout the winter because they don’t hibernate.”
Since the Manchester Honey Company was founded in 2021, Gareth sells 'unadulterated raw and pure honey as the bees intended for it to be eaten'.
“We sell all our honey based on its postcode,” he says. “The honey made in my M33 apiary is so much more different to the M41 apiary which is surrounded by cherries, plums, brambles, and apple trees. We submitted that M41 honey to the Great Taste Awards last year because of how proud we are of it and it won three stars.”
You can find more about the Manchester Honey Company here.
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