JANEFIELD STREET INVASION - by Gary Nolan

I was enjoying the summer holidays from Newlands Primary School one warm sunny day, and was kicking around Palace Street looking for entertainment when I became aware of The Janefield Invasion.

Just around the corner down at the lower end of Palace street - where it meets Janefield Street - there used to be a sort of free-standing electrical junction box. I could hear the sound of many voices and there seemed to be a lot of people milling around there.

Heading on down there to find out what was up, I discovered that Janefield Street had been invaded by the most enormous swarm of bees I'd ever seen. These bees had settled on that electrical junction box and there were so many of them that they entirely covered almost the whole of that junction box.

As the bees moved around, squirming, squiggling and crowding each other for landing space, sometimes flying around a bit before re-settling with the swarm, the whole crowd was fairly thrumming with tension.

I remember that along with the hordes of kids all fascinated by this strange sight, there were many adults too, with worried mothers trying to persuade their offspring to get inside to safety. Nobody there seemed to have the least idea of what this enormous swarm was going to do next, so it was a toss up between feeling excited or feeling fear of being stung to death. This invasion of the giant swarm was almost certainly a new experience for most of the spectators.

Hours and hours went by, with adults coming and going, watching the behaviour of the swarm and warning us to keep back a safe distance and so forth. During all this time, these bees continued to rest or squiggle about on the electrical box surface, with the odd few taking off for sudden short patrol flights - to keep off intruders no doubt.

Eventually "the men" arrived from who knows where. This was another treat. It was quite a spectacle to watch them work by using honeycombs to re-capture the whole swarm and transport them - presumably to a more bee-friendly location.

Does anyone else recall seeing this invasion on Janefield Street that summer day? I can't recall after all this time who else was there, only that there were a lot of people, adults as well as children.