An accident on I-5 in Washington State saw a truck overturn, spilling its cargo on the road, and releasing millions of bees onto the highway.
According to a report by USA today, state troopers claimed that the truck was going too fast when it merged from 405 onto I-5 North, flipping the truck over, and spilling 448 hives containing about 13.7 million bees onto the highway.
Since the accident occurred at night, the bees were surprisingly mostly docile and a clean-up crew was able to rescue 128 hives before the temperatures rose and the bees started swarming. Unlucky (or unwise) reporters and cameramen got the worst of it since the cleanup crews were equipped with the proper beekeeping equipment.
Once the bees became aggressive, firefighters sprayed foam on the boxes to kill the insects, then scooped the boxes into a dump truck and destroyed them.
The driver was uninjured, and authorities estimate that the damage will amount to $92,000, but the owner of the shipment says that the accident will mean losses of future income totaling “a couple hundred thousand dollars for sure.”
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Source: jagran, csmonitor, usatoday, gizmodo, komonews
Image Source: komonews
David says
13.7 million and someone at the shipper counted them all..lol
Geo says
Maybe the truck lifted off due to all the bees taking flight due to the pot holes the truck kept hitting and then fell over?