Hundreds of thousands of bees mysteriously hovered over a portion of the Badaling Expressway about 60 metres from downtown Beijing recently. But there wasn't a flower in sight, reports Beijing Star Daily.

Emerging from one end of a tunnel along the highway, the clouds of bees hummed over an area covering several square kilometres in columns two to three metres high.

While workers patched the road with asphalt, vehicles had to slow down as they joined the queue to enter the tunnel.

But the swarms of bees everywhere startled people who had left their windows open.

The strong smell of tar and the greenish-black traffic signs most likely misled the bees in their search for honey, experts said.

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