Millions of bees swarm Georgia interstate after truck overturns

Just posted to Yahoo News.  Thought you might bee interested.

http://news.yahoo.com/millions-bees-swarm-georgia-interstate-truck-overturns-184635021.html?action=-1746220161

ATLANTA (Reuters) - An overturned tractor-trailer let loose millions of honeybees on Sunday and left a sticky mess on a major highway south of Atlanta, after hitting a guardrail and spilling its cargo of hives and honey.

"It looked like there was a rain cloud around everybody," Monroe County Emergency Management Agency director Matthew Perry said on Monday. "There was a giant mound of honeycomb and bees."

A portion of Interstate 75 was closed briefly, and clean-up of the honey and swarming bees took 15 hours, Perry said.

Authorities sought help from beekeepers, who arrived with protective gear to assist with the potentially dangerous swarm.

The debris was pushed to the median with a small bulldozer and then beekeepers began piecing the broken hives back together so the bees would return, Perry said. The hives were loaded back into bee boxes and hauled away.

No one was stung or injured, in part because the weather was cool and the bees docile, Perry said.

"When you have an interstate like I-75, you never know what's going to come passing through," he said.

(Reporting by David Beasley; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Alden Bentley)

Dinner on Plan Bee

It has taken us awhile but after years we are becoming more comfortable on our property we have named "Plan Bee".

As beekeepers we have been taught that the most valuable item for a healthy bee yard is a trained beekeeper.  Therefore we want to be sure to take good care of the beekeepers on Plan Bee. 

Er ah, that would be us. :-)

Now that the Bee Inn (our new shed) is up and mostly finished, we have place to spend a night.  We strategically placed the Bee Inn behind our picnic shelter.  This compresses the human footprint on Plan Bee's 23.5 acres and is more convenient for the Beekeepers.

As you may be able to see above, we are eating our dinner of chicken, pitas and Turkish coffee at the picnic table.  I cooked the chicken on the grill using charcoal right on the table.  One the other end of the table we have a Coleman stove that is used to heat water we use for coffee, tea or oatmeal.

If you want to come and visit, send us an email  at  BeeBoy@WildThingsInABox.com and we can work out a date.