Wellington has spiraled into chaos this afternoon after extreme winds battered the city overnight, smashing open the iconic Beehive and releasing all its bees.

Winds in Wellington reached speeds of up to 195km/h at the height of the storm, tearing off roofs, damaging roads and disrupting flights. Authorities report that the winds uprooted a large tree outside Parliament in the early hours of this morning, tossing it into the Beehive and smashing it open.

“At that point, the bees went everywhere,” said one witness, who was commuting to work when she saw the bees pour out from the gaping hole in the building’s exterior. “There must have been hundreds of thousands of them.”

Civil Defence is warning Wellington residents to stay inside today as the bees cast a dark shadow over the city.

“This is a very serious and ongoing situation,” said Civil Defence director John Hamilton. “The bees are very angry, and we are asking all residents of the city and the wider Wellington region to stay indoors, or at very least don’t wave a broom in the air. The bees don’t like that.”

Hamilton said there had already been several bees-related deaths across the city.

“We’ve got one man who was found dead in his car with a bouquet of flowers and several hundred bees,” said Hamilton, “and another tragic situation where a private plane suffered multiple bee-strikes and crashed just north of Wainuiomata.”

While the bees have spread themselves all across the region, causing mayhem and murdering innocents, the majority have remained at the Beehive and Parliament buildings, where they have begun constructing an enormous nest in the House of Representatives. This has kept most workers away from the buildings today, with the exception of independent MP Brendan Horan, who has taken up residence in the House and declared himself “King of the Bees.”

Speaker David Carter has chosen to voluntarily preside over the House in order to help moderate between Horan and the bees, though he has grown increasingly frustrated by the bees’ unwillingness to remain silent during points of order. Carter has threatened numerous times to expel “all the bees” from the chamber, but has been urged repeatedly by authorities not to do that.

The release of the bees has caused particular upset to American actor Nicolas Cage, who has been holidaying in Wellington with his family.