THE blooming delights of Suffolk's most famous floral town are always a big draw for visitors but it's not often a hanging basket attracts swarms of admirers.

James Mortlock

THE blooming delights of Suffolk's most famous floral town are always a big draw for visitors but it's not often a hanging basket attracts swarms of admirers.

That, however, is exactly what happened this morning as a display of begonias and petunias near the Corn Exchange, in Bury St Edmunds, was engulfed by thousands of bees.

Minutes earlier the swarm stopped traffic and sent shoppers running for cover as the insects made their way up Abbeygate Street. But they soon made a bee line for the hanging basket of flowers and soon the swarm had almost completely covered the green trough holding the floral display.

A spokesman for St Edmundsbury Borough Council said a bee keeper was on put on alert to take the swarm away but within an hour of its arrival only feet above the heads of pedestrians, the bulk of the bees had decamped and found somewhere more suitable to settle - perhaps mindful of the daily deluges of water needed to keep the basket blooming.

He said the remaining bees would be monitored but it was believed the insects would find somewhere warmer as it got cooler this evening.