Quote Originally Posted by crazycanuck View Post
Just another reason to be a small bee hive keeper...
http://www.news.com.au/world/one-per...-1225871170288
I've seen this story in several versions already.
When you see the various photos, there are obviously not 7000 bee hives on that truck. The bee owner said it was 800 single hives (that number jives better with the photos), and of those only 150 hives either fell off the truck or were jarred open. Bee-wise, it's lucky the bee truck did not tip over. Yes that's a lot of bees escaping, but 4/5 of the hives on the truck were not damaged or cracked opened. Beekeeper workers transferred the undamaged hives onto a new truck and got them out of there.
The one person killed and other people injured were in vehicles that collided with the truck. One car was very badly crushed, it's a wonder more people weren't killed or seriously hurt. Very sad.

Some of the 150 or so crashed hives might have been salvageable, at least in parts. The beekeeper could probably re-use some of the frames and boxes, and might even have been able to transfer some frames full of bees or brood that were on the ground into empty boxes and transport them away from the crash site. Once the hives are removed from the highway area any remaining flying disoriented bees will disperse and probably die off.