Time for Top Gear's regular 'animals and public highways' round-up. Oh yes.

In California, up to 12 million swarming bees forced a motorway to close near to Sacramento after a lorry carrying the insects overturned.

The truck, which was carrying crates each filled with up to 30,000 bees, overturned on a motorway slip road. The bees stung police officers and firefighters as they tried (gingerly, presumably) to clear the accident.

Our favourite bit of this story? Highway patrol officer Michael Bradley tells us that several beekeepers driving past the accident stopped to assist. Freelance beekeepers? Nomadic bee vigilantes?

Elsewhere, German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep that evaded police patrol cars and duffed up a police dog.

The sheep escaped into the village of Guester and sprinted through the streets at more than 30mph, leaping over a police road block and headbutting dogs along the way.

Officers eventually cornered the animal in a field. "It was not an easy pursuit," said a police spokesman. "The animal had quite a turn of speed."