||| FROM KOMO-TV SEATTLE |||
A buzzworthy story is unfolding in Whatcom County, where 250 million bees have escaped after a semi-truck carrying boxes of the insects lost part of its load.
The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) first reported a closure on Weidkamp Road around 8:40 a.m. Friday. About 20 minutes later, the sheriff’s office said 250 million bees escaped.
A photo from the scene shows the truck’s trailer twisted across the road, bee-filled boxes askew
Weidkamp Road is closed from West Badger to Loomis Trail Road while authorities deal with the unusual predicament.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
This is very sad, 250 million commercial honey bees released all in one place like this could really hurt the native bee populations.
The number of bees seems off by an order of magnitude. With 400 or so hives on a semi trailer and 50,000 to 80,000 bees per hive that would be a range of 20 to 32 million. bees if they all escaped. Still a lot of buzzing though.
Ah. They corrected the story!
CORRECTION: The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office now says 250 million bees did not escape, but 14 million. The correction was posted on the sheriff’s office Facebook page Saturday morning.
That does seem much more reasonable for a truckload of hives. It’s still a lot of commercial bees to suddenly descend on native populations though.
The “commercial bees” will not be impacting the local native bees to any measurable extent.. Honey bees don’t just fly off when this happens, they return to their colony, or what’s left of it and start working on rebuilding. The bees will all be clustered on what’s left of their hives and the beekeeper will reassemble the hives as well as they can and truck them away. Former commercial beekeeper, and yes, this happens and it’s a mess to clean up as well as a big financial loss of equipment and income.