
Beekeepers To The Rescue As Millions Of Honeybees Escape Overturned Truck
HuffPost
About 250 million honeybees took to the skies when a commercial truck carrying them overturned in Washington state near the Canadian border.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — There was a buzz in the air Friday in northwestern Washington state as about 250 million honeybees escaped a commercial truck that overturned.
The truck hauling an estimated 70,000 pounds (31,751 kilograms) of honeybee hives rolled over around 4 a.m. close to the Canadian border near Lynden, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office said in social media posts.
It appears the driver did not navigate a tight turn well enough, causing the trailer to roll into a ditch, county emergency management spokesperson Amy Cloud said in an email. The driver was uninjured, Cloud said.
Deputies, county public works employees and several bee experts responded to the scene. The box hives later came off the truck, and local beekeepers swarmed to help recover, restore and reset the hives, according to the sheriff’s office.
The plan is to allow the bees to return to their hives and find their queen bee in the next day or two, according to the sheriff’s office. The goal is to save as many of the bees as possible.













