“There were a lot of bees, there were old people on the ground. It’s the first time I’ve seen that,” she told French radio station RMC.
An 80-year-old woman, who lives by the square where the attack happened, described the chaos.
“I saw two young women and a couple shaking each other. I saw a young woman in her bra and pants, she didn’t know how to handle this problem,” she told France Info.
“I got the impression they were being assaulted by something but I didn’t know what.”
The bees reportedly appeared from a rooftop apiary on the terrace of the Grand Hotel de Bordeaux, near Place du Square.
Pierre Mathonier, the town’s mayor, said: “One theory seems to hold water… Asian hornets must have threatened the hive, which provoked the bees’ aggression. These aggressive bees spread to Avenue de la République and attacked passers-by.”
However, some experts cast doubt on that theory.
Mickaël Henry, the director of the bees and environment research team, told the Libération newspaper: “When faced with a hornet, bees generally tend to stop going out and protect the entrance of the hive.”
Walid Loulidi, a master beekeeper at the Paris School of Beekeeping, gave another possible explanation.
He said breeding black bees with other species – a strategy used to increase honey production – could result in changes in behaviour over time.
The rooftop apiary has been moved since the incident, and Mathonier said he was considering banning them in the town.
The Aurillac prosecutor’s office said it was requesting the destruction of the 70,000 bees in the area.
