On Tuesday afternoon visitors to Joe's Crab Shack were greeted by an unusual guest, a swarm of honey bees.

An estimated three pounds of honeybees had taken shelter in a flower urn outside the River Street eatery, prompting Savannah resident Diane Christoff and her sister Cindy Bailey, who was visiting from Ohio, to call beekeeper Steve Salter.

"They were closing in on the urn when we came out of the restaurant," said Christoff. "We were just concerned about them being exterminated because they were honey bees and it was Earth day, too." Christoff said her sister found Salter's number online and called him to rescue the bees before an exterminator could arrive.

As employees from Joe's Crab Shack peered out the glass doors, Salter, wearing gloves, scooped-up the honey bees from the urn and placed them in a cardboard box. He was able to catch the queen, but she escaped a short time later.

Salter was hopeful she had made her way back into the box as he waited for the bees to settle down before sealing it.

"The urn was probably just a stopping point for them to wherever they were headed," he said, "Swarms happen this time of year, hives divide and split in the spring. It's just their method of propagating their species."

Salter, who's a photographer, has been beekeeping as a hobby for about eight years and Tuesday's call was his second bee-related call of the day. Earlier he had removed a swarm from a tree on Skidaway Island.

"I probably get called out more than my wife wants me to. It's kind of like playing golf for some people, it's just a hobby you like to do," he said.

Salter said he's used to seeing 50,000 to 60,000 bees at a time, so this was a small swarm. He said the hive captured on Tuesday will join the five hives he has at his home on Tybee Island where they will live a long happy life producing honey.