ELK GROVE (CBS13) — A beekeeper helped save a busy holiday weekend for a car dealership and an entire swarm of bees with his bare hands.

When customers told them about a beehive on their lot, employees at Elk Grove Volkswagen called in beekeeper Nathan Smith, and he went right to work.

“Man it was crazy,” said Kyle Cuaresma. “What was crazier was the fact that the guy was only wearing a T-shirt and flip flops getting the bees out.”

Smith showed no fear, holding the honeycomb with his bare hands.

“It’s not quite winter time, so the bees are a little more docile, but if it was inside of a hive and they were feeding on something they would have been a lot more aggressive. I would have had to use a suit,” he said.

Smith says the bees likely picked the dealership for their home after splitting from another hive nearby.

“So one hive makes two queens and then they split in half,” he said.

They were found just in time. Smith says the bees likely would have not survived at the dealership through the end of the year.

Now he plans to take them home and start feeding them, so they can become an established hive.