Bees

Yesterday was tragic. My daughter called to first tell me her fiance was OK. Then that brings on wide eyes and "WHAT HAPPENED?" It seem that Joe and his boss were each driving a semi loaded with bee hives filled with bees. They were on the interstate south of Minneapolis at a slow down for road construction. Joe was 2 cars ahead of his boss Darren. Darren felt a whump, looked in his mirror and saw bee boxes exploding, and then saw a white food service semi along side of him. The pictures on the news showed the white semi jack-knifed along side of him. There were 2 cars in back of Darren that the white semi ran over the top of before he hit the bee truck. The news pictures were dreadful. The two cars were so mangled it was hard to tell that they were two cars except for the colors. The abruptly released and startled bees were swarming in a black cloud over the wreck and caused great hindrance to rescue efforts. The firemen hosed the bees down with water and hosed both semis of bee hives down in an effort to keep them calm and cool. The loss of bees from both trucks must be horrible, but even worse was the loss of two lives of the drivers of the two cars. The cause of the wreck hasn't been determined, but there is a lot of speculation. I won't speculate here, but I do have to say it was NOT the fault of the bee trucks as I see a lot of comments on several of the news sites.

I stayed up very late last night looking for updates of the situation online since I don't have TV to watch the news. I was greatly saddened when I read that the second car driver who was airlifted out by helicopter had died. She was 24. The families of the two who died are in my prayers. I'm very grateful Joe and Darren are alright. We have yet to see how many bees were lost and the effect on the lost honey production and pollination.