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The summer sun generated a real buzz in town over the weekend – especially around a pan-Asian restaurant which attracted some un-bee-lievable visitors.
The staff of Awabi, a Halkett Place restaurant owned by brother-and-sister duo Stephen and Hayley Yu, came in on Saturday to the sight of bees swarming the restaurant's bright orange shopfront.
Stephen told Express he had actually been off work on Saturday night, and he was on the beach with his family when the Awabi WhatsApp group lit up around 17:00 as front-of-house staff were arriving at work.
"For some reason, stuff like this always happens when I'm off!" said Stephen.
Pictured: The swarm of bees as seen from the inside of the restaurant. (Awabi)
Though they were at first dispersed, the bees eventually started forming a pack on the front window.
Stephen explained that luckily staff can enter through a back door, so they were observing their winged visitors through the window from the inside of the shop.
"They were more worried about the customers," he said.
"We ended up having to call the customers and a lot of them ended up pushing back their slot, which gave us some time to handle them.
"It looked pretty scary. It was pretty gross."
Pictured: The pan-Asian restaurant created a real 'buzz' this weekend. (Awabi)
The bigger problem, Stephen said, was in locating someone who could take care of the bees and who would be free on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
"I was trying to google who takes care of bees," he said. "Is it a pest thing, is it a beekeeper thing?"
Stephen eventually found a beekeeper, Tony Kiirk, the West Jersey Swarm Coordinator at the Jersey Beekeepers' Association.
He arrived at Awabi about two hours later and captured the bees in an operation that took around four hours.
Pictured: Sibling duo Hayley and Stephen Yu own modern pan-Asian restaurant Awabi. (James Jeune)
"He did have time for a beer, which we gladly offered him!" said Stephen.
He added that the Jersey Beekeepers' Association does valuable work around conservation.
Staff theorised that the restaurant's brand-new, bright orange paint job might have attracted the bees – but beekeeper Tony laughed off the suggestion, Stephen said.
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The incident didn't have a major effect on the business, Stephen added.
No-one cancelled on what was already shaping up to be a quiet night, with most islanders out enjoying the sunshine.
"In the end, it was quite a humorous instance," the Awabi owner said.
He thanked the Jersey Beekeepers' Association for their help.
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