The quarter-final between Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev of Indian Wells, the tennis tournament taking place in California, has been suspended due to a sensational “infestation” of bees on the court. The athletes were forced off the field and the footage quickly went viral with people fleeing the bees and on-site cameras completely covered by the animals themselves. But was it really an invasion of openers? Actually, from a technical point of view, no. A beekeeper explains it in an informative video on TikTok. “In the videos, we see the bees moving frantically. But it's not an invasion. It's a swarming,” explains expert Daniele Ulisse. That is, the way bee families reproduce. “It's an early swarming of bees, because the latter n “usually do not swarm in March. In this swarm, we find the queen who has escaped from a hive, taking with her her disciples and at this point starting a new family”, reveals the beekeeper. The swarm of 3,500 bees was then collected and moved with their bare hands by Lance Davis, a local beekeeper. “I sucked them into a cage designed to capture them alive,” Davis, who has been caring for bees since 1971, explained on the official ATP website, “so I could then take them out and release them into one hives I have that are set up for exactly this sort of thing. This time of year is swarm season, so they go everywhere. And I'm just happy to be there for them so they don't have an accident. It was a small swarm of about 3,500 bees.”
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