Mar 19
2008
8 Million Bees on the Loose
Some images just stick with you…like the idea of eight million bees loose on the freeway.
This story came out of California a couple of days ago. It seems that a truck hauling 440 colonies of bees overturned–setting loose EIGHT MILLION BEES! That’s an image I can’t get out of my mind. Take a look at the photo at the bottom of this news story.
It seems that the big rig that was hauling the bees home overturned, setting loose all the flying critters. It shut down traffic for hours while several other beekeepers–WHO HAPPENED TO BE PASSING BY THE ACCIDENT–wrangled them back into the colonies to be hauled away.
The good news is that bees are very orderly creatures. Once the hives were set up the buzzing bees rendez-voused with their brethren so they could be transported to their next job. Some bees were lost. And it will take a while to sort out the whole one-queen-per-hive issue. But for the most part, the cool-headed beekeepers efficiently dealt with eight million potential problems fairly handily.
First, I didn’t know that there were itinerant bees. I thought that bees were pretty much home-based and took care of their own fields and crops. But these bees were apparently being trucked back to Washington state after a gig in the San Joaquin Valley.
Second, who knew that there were so many bees a coming and going that there would be more than one big bunch of beekeepers on a single stretch of California highway? What are the chances? Well, apparently pretty good in California. But then, California is a special place, no?
My head is still buzzing with the thought of eight million bees on the loose.
