CNN –
Authorities were trying to capture five million released bees after a truck carrying several boxes of beehives crashed onto a road in Ontario, Canada, yesterday, Halton Region Police Officer Ryan Anderson told CNN.
Halton Regional Police received a call just after 6 a.m. Wednesday after the straps attached to the boxes containing beehives came loose and caused an overflow, sending the millions of bees onto the street in Burlington, Anderson told CNN by phone.
Burlington is south of Toronto. According to its website, the city is located on the shores of Lake Ontario between Toronto and Niagara Falls.
After the police announced A social media post warns residents and vehicles to stay away from the area, about six or seven local beekeepers volunteered to help bring the bees back to safety, Anderson said.
“Within a few hours, most of the bees had returned safely to their boxes in their hives and were safely loaded back onto the trailer,” Anderson said.
A local Canadian beekeeper was one of the volunteers who helped capture some of the five million bees.
Michael Barber, who owns Tri-City Bee Rescue in nearby Guelph, said he received a call from police around 7 a.m. Wednesday morning to help rescue the bees.
The honey bees will be relocated after being deployed locally for pollination, Barber told CNN by telephone.
Barber said beekeepers typically work to bring bees back to their winter garden this time of year.
“In this case, they left the farmer’s field before harvesting their crops and simply brought them back to their home garden,” he said.
“There were probably about 40 hives on the trailer and about 20 of the hives tipped off the trailer [the driver] I was trying to avoid a deer,” Barber added. “When I arrived at the scene, I spoke to the beekeeper involved in the accident and asked how we could best help [we came] come up with a plan.”
After the nearly four-hour ordeal, several of the boxes were left on the side of the road in the hope that the remaining flyaway bees would return to their queen in the hive and be collected later, Anderson said.
According to police, the original beekeeper was stung repeatedly, but there were no serious injuries from the swarm of bees in the area.
“The first beekeeper on site was stung multiple times,” Anderson said.
Police could not provide further details about why or where the bees were being transported, but Anderson said it was not uncommon for bees to be transported to help farmers with pollination.
Anderson said it was a collaborative effort between residents, officials and local beekeepers to clear the road and allow everyone to get to their destination safely.
“Everyone kind of participated,” Anderson said. “I was told that even some residents helped out, people from the area or passers-by.”
“It was a joint effort between residents and beekeepers who managed to clean up the scene safely and as quickly as we had hoped.”
Barber said while it was sad to see how many bees died in the incident, the helping hands of the group of local beekeepers were a beautiful sign of community.
“It was sad just to be there and see the carnage and the amount of dead bees on the street,” Barber said. “But it was really great to see all the beekeepers come to the call and just try to help.”