Thousands Of Bees Swarm Florida Highway After Truck Carrying Hives Crashes
Something quite un-bee-lievable happened on a Florida highway this week.
A pickup truck transporting beehives, which were home to around one million bees, collided with a tractor-trailer on Tuesday morning, releasing a swarm of bees onto the road.
The shocking incident happened on US Route 301 in Duval County at around 3:15 a.m.
After the wreck, thousands of escapee bees buzzed around the area, the Florida Highway Patrol said. However, they were reportedly not aggressive.
FHP did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Trent Padgett — the owner of Jesup Bee Company and the driver of the truck carrying the bees — told local news outlet WJXT that he was travelling to the city of Lawtey to make honey when the collision took place.
“We both had a green light, but the semitruck made a U-turn there without a turn signal,” Padgett said of the crash. “I didn’t see it coming, so I just hit right at the front end of the truck.”
He added: “A lot of bees got lost. A lot of them flew away. There’s a lot of dead bees on the highway that came from those boxes.”
Padgett told WJXT that he allegedly lost $40,000 (£31,826) worth of bees in the incident.
No injuries were reported, FHP said. But the wreck caused significant buzz in the area.
A beekeeper was called in to wrangle many of the winged insects, and local motorists were instructed to use caution.
The highway returned to normal activity by 7am or 7:30am, the Florida Times-Union reported.