December 13, 2008

Nearby residents were forced to evacuate their homes as a fire took hold at Mossop's Honey Shoppe last night, while 10,000 bees were lucky to escape alive.
Firefighters were called to the building on State Highway 29 in Tauriko at 10.40pm, after a blaze started on the shop's back porch.
Mike and Tiffany Limmer, could see the blaze from their bedroom window and feared it would move to their house as they watched firefighters bring it under control from the shop's front lawn.
'I was asleep when Mike came in and said, `we have to leave the house, there's a fire next door',' Mrs Limmer said.
Station Officer Paul van Kol of the Greerton Fire Brigade said the 10,000 bees inside live hives were not burnt in the fire, which destroyed a third of the building.
'The back end of the building was showing flames starting to come out through the windows out the back. We managed to save the bees, the bees are all up and running around this morning.'
However, the smoke-damaged honey inside the building had this morning created a rather unusual phenomenon.
While the bees inside likely remained dopey from the smoke, close to a hundred wild bees swarmed outside the building, looking to get inside to the damaged honey.
Ken McKeagg, fire safety officer, was today inspecting the building.
At this stage, the fire was being treated as suspicious.
Lynton Mossop, the brother of owner Neil Mossop, lives in the house behind the shop and said he didn't hear anything last night.
It was not until this morning that he came out to see the damage.
Nobody was inside when the building caught alight but St John ambulance paramedics were on stand by just in case.