by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Crystal Dawson, a Wellington Recreation Commission employee, came back to work during her lunch hour Wednesday afternoon only to get the scare of her life.

She parked the car on the south side of the WRC parking lot, got out, and saw this dark big lump of on the short metal parking lot fence.

Dawson thought that was strange and went closer to look. What she discovered made her jump and run. It was… bees!

For some reason, the fence had some sugar-water type substance and some worker bees flying around looking for a location for a new nest discovered it. They then got the queen bee and she and her swarm took to the sugar substance medal parking lot bar as the new colony home.

Not knowing what to do Dawson called a bee removal company in Wichita. But they were charging too much.

Dawson then remembered her neighbor Lonnie Hays is a bee enthusiast.

So he was called in to remove the beehive.

Hays said bee colonies are established when a mated queen and a larger contingent of worker bees break away from the home colony during the spring after a long hard winter huddled together.

This group obviously moved en masse to a nest site which they determined to be the medal WRC parking lot bar. Once the swarm arrived, they were in the process of building a nest before Hays came and removed it to take it to his bee hive at his home.

“The scary thing is that’s my neighbor,” Dawson said. “So I might be seeing those bees again.”

WRC sports director Tanner Ford said he has a bee phobia. He wasn’t around for the official bee removal process.