FAMILIES flew into a panic when thousands of bees moved into their neighbourhood - and refused to buzz off.

The swarm of bees gathered on a wall outside Forester Tower, at Wood Farm, Oxford, yesterday afternoon.

The city council's neighbourhood office on the estate was inundated with requests for help.

And parents were so worried they kept their children behind closed doors.

Robert Mason, 32, of Nuffield Road, whose home overlooks the swarm, said: "We've never seen anything like it before. The worry is if someone disturbs them, you've got a catastrophe.

"Everybody's been keeping their kids and dogs inside."

Lorraine Pender, 29, said: "We've had to keep shouting at people to move away.

"I rang up the Wood Farm council office but they said they could not do anything."

She said her son, Francis, nine, had been forced to stay indoors since the swarm arrived. Another resident, Natalie White, 38, said the council should have brought someone in to disperse the swarm.

She said: "I think they should have done something. Would you want that opposite your home?"

Pc Paul Lambden, the area's beat officer, asked a resident to park a car next to the bees in order to protect the public.

He said the bees appeared to be resting.

The city's environmental health department said the swarm was down to yesterday's fine weather.

Tony Brind, pest control surveyor for the city council, said: "If it was a wasps' nest we would attend it.

"Our policy is not to go round destroying swarms of honey bees because there's no need.

"It is a swarm of bees that has taken off from a hive or a hole in a tree.

"They have momentarily stopped on a wall. A long as people leave them alone they are quite placid when they're swarming. "

The bees were later removed by a professional beekeeper.

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