A truck carrying 12 million honeybees hit a wall on a highway ramp, dumping its load across the pavement shortly before the evening rush hour.
The truck was carrying 480 bee colonies, each with 25,000 insects, to California to pollinate the state's almond crop when it struck the wall Wednesday afternoon.
The collision spilled the bees and gallons of honey onto the highway and forced troopers to close the southbound ramp between Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 95 for more than four hours.
State police believe the driver lost control on the curving ramp.
Authorities summoned beekeepers to help but decided capturing the bees alive would take too much time and money. Firefighters doused the insects with water to kill them.
"We're talking millions of bees," said Don Grogan, owner of Sedona Honey Co. in Las Vegas, who was helping with the cleanup. "And tomorrow they'll all be dead. ... It breaks my heart."
beepocalypse!
Millions of Bees Spilled on Vegas Freeway
16 Responses:
That sucks immensely and makes me very sad.
BEEEEES!!
This was a huge mess, and it's nearly ludicrous to think, but it made cross town traffic all but impossible during rush hour. The area affected was the main junction between the busiest east/west and north/south highway in Vegas. It's also in the dead center of the city and the only currently viable route between the cities two largest population centers. Traffic overflowed onto the various surface streets and trips that normally took 15-20 minutes were taking from 1 to 2 hours.
And all that was caused by bees.
But hey we made the national news, and it wassn't for political corruption or homocide.
Today I called animal control to pick up a stray dog that showed up at my house. When he got here I noticed a government issued book about terrorism tucked into the door of his truck.
Maybe the terrorists ARE using bees! Don't worry, animal control will save us all from the terror bees.
Most animal control officers are sworn peace officers, the same as police. Some have powers of arrest, and in any case, almost all are government employees, so they have to have some training on terrorism.
And in any case, they hardly ever handle bee calls.
I dont know about where you live, but around here they're not sworn officers. This guy didn't have a gun. Whats he going to do to a terrorist? Put a leash on him?
Where I live, in Kentucky, they don't have guns or power of arrest, but they are still sworn peace officers (go figure). But right over the river in Ohio (or Cincinnati, at least) they do carry guns and have power of arrest.
But as I said, almost all the government workers (at least around here) received terrorist awareness training of some sort. Even my friend who works in the Property Valuation Office. Just in case some terrorist gets upset over his tax rate, I guess.
HHAHAHAHAHA, thats great, yeah I figured it was every last government employee who got one of those books.
Yes, I said in any case twice. It just sounds THAT good.
you kidding man, this is snitch nation.
water kills bees?
???????
Wet bees can't fly. They don't fly in the rain. When field bees get caught in rainstorms they have to stay where they are and hope they can make it back to the hive a some later point. Luckily, they are pretty good at predicting rain.
Some beekeepers don't ever smoke their bees (smoking the hive sets it back a day or two) and use sugar water in a spray bottle to keep the bees calm. When you spray bees with sugar water they can't fly and they all start cleaning the sugar off of each other which keeps them occupied while you inspect them.
well that was a pretty cool little tidbit of knowledge there, thanks.
I know bee's have a relatively short life span, I wonder if the idea is to hose them down so they cant fly and the ones that don't get run over/stepped on while they wait to dry die off ... although in nevada i doubt it would take long.
geez man, what a crappy way to die, on the concrete in the desert. .. Although I imagine it's pretty cool there around now (its normally a bit cooler in vegas than in phoenix, and its been pretty cool here lately).
Either way, I appreciate the obscure information.
According to the info I have, they used a soap and water solution, not just water. Soap stops up the lungs of pests like bees and wasps.
When I saw this story earlier today, the first thing that came to mind was that it was totally a story you would post.
I mean, it's bees. A lot of them.
So basically they were transporting millions of minors across state lines to have sex with plants.
That's pretty fucked up.