Canada: Authorities race to capture five million bees

Ottawa: Canadian authorities are working towards capturing five million bees released after a truck carrying several crates of hives fell onto a roadway in Ontario, Canada, Halton Regional Police Constable Ryan Anderson told CNN.

Halton Regional Police received a call shortly after 6 am on Wednesday, after the straps attached to the crates of beehives became loose and created a spill, releasing millions of bees onto the roadway in Burlington, Anderson told CNN by phone.

Burlington is south of Toronto. The city is located on the shores of Lake Ontario between Toronto and Niagara Falls, according to its website.

Anderson said that after the police shared a social media post warning residents and vehicles to stay clear of the area, about six or seven local beekeepers volunteered to help get the bees back to safety.

“Within a couple hours, the majority of the bees were safely back in their hives in their crates, and were safely loaded back on the trailer,” Anderson said, as per CNN.

A local Canadian beekeeper was one of the volunteers who helped capture some of the five million bees.

Michael Barber who owns Tri-City Bee Rescue in nearby Guelph, said he received a call from the police at around 7 am on Wednesday morning to help assist with the rescue of the bees.
The honeybees were being moved after being used locally for pollination, Barber told CNN by phone.

Barber said usually around this time of year, beekeepers work to bring bees back to their winter home yard.

He said: “In this case, they were getting out of the farmer’s field before they harvested their crops, and just take them back to their home yard.”

“There were probably about 40 hives on the trailer, and about 20 of the hives tipped off of the trailer because [the driver] was trying to avoid hitting a deer,” Barber added. “Once I got on the scene, I was talking with the beekeeper who was involved in the accident, asking how we could help best and [we came] up with a plan.”

Following the nearly four-hour ordeal, several of the crates were left on the side of the roadway in hopes the remaining bees who had taken off would return to their queen in the hive and be collected later, Anderson said.

Police say the initial beekeeper was stung repeatedly, but there were no serious injuries following the swarm of bees in the area.

“The initial beekeeper on the scene was stung quite a few times,” Anderson said, as per CNN.