Forget the Hunchback, its all about the Lady Bees of Notre Dame

The news this week was dominated by something other than Brexit for a change. The beautiful, history steeped Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris became engulfed by a mighty blaze on Monday evening which saw the roof cave in and the famous tower collapse. It is reported that had the fire ravaged on for 30 more minutes the building would no longer be standing at all. Investigations are still on going as to what caused the fire, but it is being reported that it was an electrical fault possibly in the elevators under the cathedrals spire.

If you saw the news the seriousness of the blaze was immense, flames dancing several metres above the roof it really did look like the nations special building would be damaged beyond repair. Amazingly the cathedral has survived structurally as have the relics within. Perhaps the most surprising and welcome news from the incident is that the Lady Bees of Notre Dame also survived the inferno.

Since 2013 the Cathedral has been home to 180,000 bees, their 3 wooden hives are situated on the first floor on a roof over the sacristy and their keeper Nicolas Geant is over the moon to report that the bees have been seen going about their daily business and can be heard buzzing from the hives.

He says its highly like that the hives filled with smoke which would have prompted the bees to gorge on honey and surround the queen in an attempt to protect her, he knew they wouldn’t have left the hives and he was sure they would have perished but thankfully the flames didn’t reach them and the hives are all undamaged.

Mr Geant said “I was incredibly sad about Notre Dame because it’s such a beautiful building, and as a catholic it means a lot to me. But to hear there is life when it comes to the bees, that’s just wonderful. I was overjoyed,” he added.