Millions of honeybees swarmed a rural Texas neighborhood after a semitrailer transporting approximately 400 hives overturned, authorities confirmed.
Emergency officials in Orange County, located east of Houston near the Louisiana border, promptly closed roads Sunday morning, advising residents to remain indoors.
Crews were dispatched to unload the damaged trailer and rescue as many hives as possible. No bee stings or serious injuries were immediately reported following the incident, and the owner of the hives has not yet been identified.
Christie Ray, proprietor of the local Queen Bee Supply, noted that volunteers from several other beekeeping businesses arrived to assist at the crash site.
“They just help each other, that’s what they do,” Ray said. “The beekeeping community is a great community.”
Chris Moore, owner of Moore Honey, along with his son and several employees, joined the effort to help the bees, but he estimated that only about a quarter of the 408 hives will survive. It mostly depends on how many queens remain alive after the crash, he said.
The potential impact on a beekeeping business following a loss like this depends on the size of the apiary. Moore pointed out that the keeper is losing not only the hives but also the revenue they could be generating.
“It’s a big loss,” Moore said. “Any time you lose that many in one shot, it’s a big loss.”
It’s common for large beekeeping operations to move hives around the country to provide commercial pollination for agriculture in places like California and to follow blooming seasons throughout the South and the Midwest for honey production.
The hives that crashed Sunday had only traveled a few miles on a trip to North Dakota when the truck driver took a wrong turn and ended up in a neighborhood with narrow roads, Moore said. The driver was trying to navigate a tight corner when the trailer fell over.
Other local keepers have put out catch boxes to collect remaining strays, but it will likely take a while for the insects to clear out of the area, Moore said.
In April, a crash involving a truck full of bees slowed interstate traffic near Knoxville, Tennessee.
