Monday, June 30, 2008

12 Million Bees




Truck hauling 12 million bees overturns
Local beekeeper, experts from Agriculture Canada called in as people with allergies warned

June 30, 2008 02:36 PM
THE CANADIAN PRESS

"ST. LEONARD, N.B. – Beekeepers in New Brunswick had the unenviable task today of recovering 12 million honey bees from a truck that overturned on the Trans-Canada Highway in the northwest corner of the province.
One beekeeper described the bees as “nasty” after their ordeal.
RCMP Sgt. Derek Strong says the flatbed truck, carrying 330 crates of bees, was travelling on a highway ramp near St. Leonard when the load shifted and the truck overturned shortly after 6 a.m.
When the truck landed on its side, many of the crates — each containing four hives — broke open.
“With the impact they just went crazy,” said beekeeper Edmond Bellefleur, who drove from his home in nearby Drummond to have a look.
“The ones that were able to get out, did get out.
You could see some others sticking to the hives, but once they started to open the netting and unpacking the hives one by one and putting them on pallets, then they really started to fly, and they got nasty.”
The rest of this story can be read here.
There is now an update from CTV News here.
Hopefully by nightfall they will have been able to recapture all of them without any injuries.
BEE careful out there every one.

4 comments:

menopausaloldbag (MOB) said...

Oh my god that story is amazing. I am not frightened by one or two bee's but several swarms would have had me screaming for the hills.

Great Teddy bears! How many do you have?

I'll pop by tomorrow to read more of your posts when I get a moment. Thanks for popping by mine.

kenju said...

Oh, my Lord!! I am sure glad I'm not around there! I think they should have secured that load a little better. Our bees leave us alone most of the time, but yesterday we had some people over to swim in the pool and the bees kept buzzing around them! One of their boys said a bee even flew into his mouth. ICK!

Anonymous said...

Bees are important and they are all disappearing. I hope they got them all rounded up and off to wherever they were supposed to be.

Anonymous said...

We had a swarm of bees in our garage once and in our basement years ago. It is really creepy to hear the buzzing and see hundreds of little winged creatures with stingers flying by. I wouldn't have wanted the job of unpacking the hives!