Even the NYPD’s famed “Tony Bees” wanted no part of these nasty little buggers.
Just weeks after Detective Anthony Planakis put in his retirement papers, following 20 years as the department’s top bee expert, cops were forced to battle a nasty swarm of European yellow jackets in an Upper West Side playground without him.
Parks Department workers on Friday discovered the hive hidden behind a growth of ivy next to a fence at the Sol Bloom Playground on West 92nd Street near Columbus Avenue.
Scores of children use the park every day, and parents worried their little ones could be stung.
Without Planakis available, patrol cops did their best to respond to the swarm. Instead of safely relocating them as Planakis usually does, officers used an aerosol can of bug killer to exterminate the buzzing menaces. Cops waited 40 minutes before they left the playground to make sure the insects were dead.
An NYPD spokesman downplayed the carnage, saying only “10 were exterminated.”
But a Post reporter found dozens of the dead insects’ carcasses littering the ground.
Though he’s better known for saving buzzing creatures, Planakis said cops did the right thing this time because yellow jackets are more dangerous than honeybees.
“I would have done the same thing because of the . . . possibility of children getting stung,” Planakis said.
Unlike their bee cousins, European yellow jackets are aggressive, meat-eating predators that are fiercely protective of their nests — and could have swarmed a curious child.
“Yellow jackets are notoriously defensive of their nests and will chase other animals away,” Steve Jacobs, an urban entomologist at Penn State, wrote on the school’s Web site.
“These colonies can reach into the thousands of individuals late in the summer or early fall and their presence near to people make them a potential danger.”
Jacobs warned that it’s best to hire professionals to get rid of the pests.
“It is wise to contract with a pest management professional rather than attempting to do this yourself,” he said.