Robbie Mackinlay called as bees swarm pitch at Lavington cricket ground

The match at Lavington Sports Ground on Saturday, March 25, came to an abrupt halt about 3.30pm when hundreds of bees zeroed in on the stumps, prompting umpire Brendan Wood to put in a desperate plea for help.

Border sporting personality Robbie Mackinlay, who was watching a first grade match at the adjacent oval, and is an amateur beekeeper, took the call.

"Brendan asked if I was in the vicinity of oval number two at the Lavington ground, I said yeah, I'm over in the grandstand watching the A-grade game at number one, and he said, mate, I need you over straight away, we've got bees swarming on the stumps," Mr Mackinlay said.

"I said, mate, you must be joking, and he said, no, I'm not, seriously, you need to get over here to have a look - he called me because I'm a beekeeper.

"So I quickly went over and had a look and realised, yeah, it's pretty fair dinkum. I live in East Albury so I grabbed a guy's car, flew home, picked up my bee suits.

"Me and my wife, who also knows about bees, came back and sorted it out because the issue was that they were going to run out of time with the daylight."

While no emergency services were called and no one was reported to have been stung, Mr Mackinlay said it was the most unusual sight he'd ever seen at a cricket match.

"I've played cricket for over 40 years and, every now and then you'd get a swarm across the ground and the golden rule is you hit the deck," he said.

"But I've never seen them go the stumps before.

"To the credit of the umpires and players from both sides, they played until game was completed, but there were still bees coming and going from that end.

"They wanted to get the play through - it's remarkable. When you get a game reduced in overs, it's generally associated with bad weather, but never with bees."

Mr Mackinlay smoked and contained the insects, believed to be wild honey bees.

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"They finished the game with restricted overs (Wodonga Raiders defeated St Patricks)," he said. "The coincidence was that I'm a cricket coach, cricket player, but also a beekeeper.

"I suppose it was just lucky I happened to be there."

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