A trucker hauling roughly two million bees up Interstate 94 in North Dakota on Thursday afternoon ended his day stung hundreds of times and on his way to a Fargo hospital. He had not started the day expecting to be in any of those three places, but found himself there unexpectedly after his semi overturned. The crash that put him there began with another driver trying to pass him.
According to the North Dakota Highway Patrol, a 15-year-old driver merging onto westbound I-94 from an Exit 292 on-ramp abruptly moved into the left lane to pass a vehicle in front of him without noticing the Kenworth semi already alongside. The two vehicles did not actually collide. The semi driver swerved hard to avoid it anyway.
The semi entered the median, the driver tried to correct back onto the roadway, and the truck rolled onto its side, blocking the passing lane. The trailer had been carrying 600 to 800 beehives. The hives separated during the rollover and released the bees.
The driver of the truck got himself out of the cab. The bees got to him almost immediately. The hours that followed involved a river, an eight-hour interstate closure, a skid steer and a shelter-in-place request for residents with bee allergies.
What State Patrol Says Happened
According to a North Dakota Highway Patrol release, the crash occurred at about 3:57 p.m. on Thursday, May 28, on westbound I-94 at Exit 292 in Valley City, North Dakota. A 15-year-old boy from Valley City was driving a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado onto the interstate from the on-ramp at the same time another vehicle was merging in front of him.
A 55-year-old man from Hialeah, Florida, was driving a 2015 Kenworth semi-truck westbound in the lane where the on-ramp merges into traffic, the agency said. According to the release, the Silverado entered the right lane, then abruptly attempted to move into the left lane to pass the vehicle ahead, without seeing the Kenworth, which was directly alongside it.
The semi driver swerved to avoid the Silverado, the agency said, entered the median and rolled the truck onto its side as he tried to correct back. The two vehicles never actually made contact.
The Cargo and the Release
The Kenworth trailer had been carrying 600 to 800 beehives, containing an estimated more than two million bees, according to the Highway Patrol. The hives separated from the trailer during the rollover, releasing the bees onto and around the highway.
The bees have since dispersed around the area in Florida. There’s no additional word on whether they ended up stinging anyone else on the highway. There weren’t any details on what type of bees the trailer had been hauling, either.