Millions of honeybees escaped into a rural Texas neighbourhood after a semitrailer carrying about 400 hives tipped over, officials said.
Emergency officials in Orange County, Texas, shut down roads in the area Sunday morning (local time) and warned residents to stay in their homes while crews worked to unload the trailer and salvage as many hives as possible. The county is located east of Houston and borders Louisiana.
No bee stings or serious injuries were immediately reported. Officials haven't identified the owner of the hives.
Christie Ray, who owns nearby Queen Bee Supply, said volunteers from three or four other beekeeping businesses in the area went to the crash scene to help.
“They just help each other, that’s what they do,” Ray said. “The beekeeping community is a great community.”
Chris Moore, owner of Moore Honey, along with his son and several employees, joined the effort to help the bees, but he estimated that only about a quarter of the 408 hives will survive. It mostly depends on how many queens remain alive after the crash, he said.
The potential impact on a beekeeping business following a loss like this depends on the size of the apiary. Moore pointed out that the keeper is losing not only the hives but also the revenue they could be generating.
“It’s a big loss,” Moore said. "Any time you lose that many in one shot, it’s a big loss.”
It's common for large beekeeping operations to move hives around the country to provide commercial pollination for agriculture in places such as California and to follow blooming seasons throughout the South and the Midwest for honey production.
The hives that crashed had only travelled a few kilometres on a trip to North Dakota when the truck driver took a wrong turn and ended up in a neighbourhood with narrow roads, Moore said. The driver was trying to navigate a tight corner when the trailer fell over.
Other local keepers have put out catch boxes to collect remaining strays, but it will likely take a while for the insects to clear out of the area, Moore said.
In April, a crash involving a truck full of bees slowed interstate traffic near Knoxville, Tennessee.
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