Latest news with #beeexperts
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Bee-uitful road clean up: bees spill in Whatcom County cleared
Some 14 million honey bees are now off Weidkamp Road Saturday in Whatcom County. Now the road is expected to reopen by Saturday afternoon. A semi-truck carrying the bees overturned Friday, with the live bees onboard. The accident caused the bees to swarm the area along the road. Bee experts were in place using techniques to capture and keep the bees in the same area, preventing them from flying further away. Weidkamp Road was closed from West Badger Road to Loomis Trail Road. This area is close to the Canadian border, northwest of Lynden. It's unclear what caused the truck to turn over. While there is no general health risk to the public, anyone who is allergic to bee stings or has concerns should check the Department of Health's page on bees. It was first believed that the initial estimate of bees was 250 million, but now the number has been reduced to 14 million.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Bee-ware: truck carrying 250m honeybees overturns by US-Canada border
Officials near the US border were abuzz after being relentlessly attacked on Friday morning by a swarm of fugitives: honeybees had escaped after a truck carrying hives overturned near the Canadian border. About 250m honeybees flew free of the truck around 4am a few miles south of Canada. The truck that was transporting around 70,000lbs of hives and honeybees rolled over on a road in north-western Washington state. Local sheriff deputies and bee experts swarmed to the scene, where they removed the box hives to help recover and rescue as many bees as possible. The driver of the truck was not injured. Hours later, officials could not bee-lieve that the bees began to swarm and sting the deputies. Some sheriff deputies took refuge in their patrol cars to avoid the stinging swarm. According to a sheriff spokesperson, the driver was neither drunk nor buzzed, rather, the driver likely did not navigate a sharp turn well enough, causing the trailer to roll. This article includes content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Officials warned the public to bee careful and avoid the area, to prevent getting stung. Several beekeeping experts are developing plans to 'save as many bees as possible', the spokesperson told the Seattle Times. The current plan includes closing a road for a couple of days while the bees calm down, bee-have and re-enter their hives, which will then be gathered and secured. The sting operation may be successful, a bee expert told the New York Times, saying that honeybees are social and will likely settle close to the truck. 'Thank you to the wonderful community of beekeepers: over two dozen showed up to help ensure the rescue of millions of pollinating honey bees would be as successful as possible,' the sheriff's office said in a post, as reported by the Associated Press. Honeybee colonies are important and crucial to the world's food supply by pollinating crops. But they are fragile and have been placed under further stress in recent years by a number of factors, including insecticides, parasites and the climate crisis.
