These bees just took down a Raptor.
A swarm of nearly 20,000 bees grounded an F-22 aircraft in Virginia, the Air Force said in a press release.
Crew members at Joint Base Langley-Eustis made a buzzworthy find when they noticed the 8-pound mass of insects hanging from the plane’s engine exhaust nozzle.
"I was shocked like everyone else because it looked like a cloud of thousands of bees," said Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Baskin, 192nd Maintenance Squadron crew chief.
To take the sting out of the situation, officials called in their on-base entomologist — who said it was a bigger problem than he could handle.
So instead they turned to the local beekeeper, Navy veteran Andy Westrich.
Westrich said it was the largest swarm he’d ever seen — but he knew what to do.
Using vacuum hoses, the Hampton resident was both able to safely relocate the bees — to the site of a local beer producer, who plans to use them for honey production.
Westrich was also able to offer some explanation as to why the unwanted guests were there in the first place.
The proverbially busy intruders had most likely came from a larger hive on the base and were on their way to start a new colony with their freshly crowned queen. Queen bees usually fly with eggs to lay at the new hive, but they don’t eat for 10 days before making their new home — so they tire easily during their trip.
Once the queen landed on the F-22, the whole hive followed suit. If left alone, they might have just left to find a suitable home — or they could have decided to stay put and colonize the aircraft.
Though the swarming scare happened on June 11, officials just released the stinging information this week.
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