SPOKANE, Wash. — All was calm on the West Plains Wednesday morning. Until residents awoke to an unfamiliar sound coming from the nearby road: buzzing.
On Wednesday morning, several beehives fell off a truck while traveling on Highway 902, leaving an estimated 200,000 bees on the side of the road. The West Plains Beekeepers were called to salvage the remaining bees, and were able to save thousands of them, all of which have the local beekeepers to thank for their second chance at life.
All of the bees saved from the highway are now comfortable tucked away in their new hives. Only about 20,000 to 30,000 bees survived the incident.
"We lost a lot of bees, both by the trauma of the fall and being crushed, but also because of the temperature," said Ellen Miller, the West Plains Beekeepers Co-president. "It was a mess. The frames were crushed. The honey was squished around."
The beekeepers gave the surviving bees new hives, but are not sure how many will survive. They need another week to reassess and determine if any of the queen bees are still with the colonies.
If there are no queen bees left, Miller plans to re-introduce the worker bees into the existing colonies on the property. If the queen bees survived and reform their original colonies, Miller said she already has an idea for it's name.
"That would be a fun thing to at least have that colony named '902,'" she said.
That name was inspired by the highway where the bees' first encounter with the beekeepers brought them to their second, and hopefully permanent hives.
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