Bizarre, Society

Question of the Day: What is Worse Than an Accident with a Truck?

Answer: A truck carrying 17 million bees.

A truck hauling 7,000 hives was involved in a four-car accident in Minnesota. A report says that “rescue crews were using fire hoses to douse an angry swarm of bees.” That does not seem like a good way of calming irate bees.

In my younger days, I worked as an assistant to a bee researcher at the Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Research in Maryland. We would use smoke to quiet the bees, but that might not appeal to firefighters.

For the full story, click here.

15 thoughts on “Question of the Day: What is Worse Than an Accident with a Truck?”

  2. This story reminded me of the scene in the Chris Farley movie, “Tommy Boy” where Tommy and Richard fake out the police that their erratic driving was due to “Bees”. “Your weapons are useless against them”! I wonder if Michelle Bachmann was driving this truck?

  3. Trucking bees captively for thousands of miles down filthy noxious highways full of microwave cell towers to distant fields & orchards full of Monsanto treated crops is not a good recipe for a healthy gene pool.

    If poor worker bees are smart enough to pre-calculate their next destination like the article linked by Dredd illustrates, then just perhaps they, in addition to having weakend immune systems from the road life, also lose their will to live, especially when they know in their exo-bones that the next stop is Tulsa or Toledo?

    Although we human worker bees aren’t yet as smart or organized as honeybees we are being similarly ruined by the status quo.

  4. Loss of bees is no laughing matter. Beekeepers are reporting losses of up to 30%-40% of their hives. Some speculate the losses are due to electromagnetic waves. Others blame weather or Bee Colony Collapse Disorder. The Feds are quietly looking into the matter. Given the potential disaster to our agriculture if the bee population further declines, maybe we all should have been on the fire line. Here’s the story:

    http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2010/05/12/feds-examine-massive-bee-loss.html

  5. The really sad thing is that trucking bees all over the country, which is done a lot, is being researched as a possible cause of hive collapse.

  7. Bryon,

    You are correct. They grow the following crops:

    Amaranth, Barley, Buckwheat, Canola, Corn, Crambe, Dry Edible beans, Field Peas, Flax, Lentils, Millet, Mustard, Oats, Potatoes, Rye, Safflower, Sorghum, Soybeans, Sugar beets, Sunflowers, Triticale and Wheat.

    What I find interesting is since the cell phone towers have come into existence the bee population has died in those areas.

    http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/05/cell-tower-complaint-filed-with-fcc-on-behalf-of-honey-bees/

  8. Alan

    > In my younger days, … We would use smoke to quiet the bees

    maybe we should try that with the angry tea partiers

    ==================================================================

    I can think of a certain kind of smoke that might mellow them a bit.

  10. KF:

    good call, this is a serious accident. those bees were probably being transported to pollinate orchards.

  13. With the honeybee fast becoming an endangered species this is all we need.

  14. I saw on a TV program where they used a mixture of dishsoap and water to KILL the bees. I’m not sure if this works or if they’re simply trying not to harm the bees.

  15. > In my younger days, … We would use smoke to quiet the bees

    maybe we should try that with the angry tea partiers

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