Policeman trapped in car by swarm of bees

A US policeman was reportedly stuck in his car for three hours on Tuesday morning after tens of thousand of bees swarmed around his vehicle.

The insects had escaped from a broken-down lorry containing 60 beehives en route to fertilise an orchard near Raleigh in North Carolina, AFP reports.

Wake County sheriff's spokeswoman Phyllis Stevens said of the bees: "They were confused, without their queen, they swarmed the police car probably because that was the biggest thing around that they could find."

She added that 30,000-50,000 bees had surrounded the exterior of Brandon Jenkins's police car after the officer stopped to respond to a call about the halted lorry.

Jennifer Keller, a beekeeping expert from North Carolina State University, was summoned to help and sprayed sugar water on the insects so they would lick each other and regroup, making it easier for the insects to be returned to their hives.

Keller said: "I had never seen anything quite like that. The bees had nowhere to go. I guess they used the car as a resting spot.... I got one sting. I struck a bee, so it was my own fault."