At least 10 million bees were ejected from their hives when a truck transporting them from California to North Dakota overturned on Highway 80 in Utah on Monday morning.
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The accident happened because the truck rounded a corner at high speed, Utah Highway Patrol public information officer Cameron Roden told CNN.
The driver was taken to a hospital with minor injuries and numerous bee stings.
One of the lanes then had to be closed for more than four hours to clean up the scene of the accident, which contained 416 boxes of honey bees.
“At least 10 million bees were in the air,” noted Julie Arthur, president of the Wasatch Beekeepers Association, who was called to the scene to capture the massive swarm.
So a rescue mission was launched the next day to try to recover as many bees as possible. However, Ms Arthur described the scene as “a gigantic mess” with honey and wax melting in the sun.
“There wasn’t a lot of gear to salvage, but we did find a huge cluster of bees at the back of the hill,” she told the outlet.
“We just started stacking bees in boxes as fast as we could. You weren’t pretty. They had just been unloaded from a truck and most of them had lost their queen.
Almost 10% of the lost bees were saved at the end of the operation.
Ironically, Utah is known as the “Beehive State,” with images of beehives found on all the state’s signs and monuments.