Why So Many Crashes of Bee-Carrying Trucks?

Hugh Pickens writes "Interstate 15 in southern Utah has been reopened and officials say 25 million bees that closed the road have been accounted for after a flatbed truck heading for California carrying 460 beehives overturned near a construction zone. The bees were on their way to Bakersfield, California for almond pollination next spring. 'The driver lost control, hit the concrete barrier and rolled over,' says Corporal Todd Johnson with the Utah Highway Patrol. 'Of course we then had bees everywhere.' But a similar incident happened in July, when 14 million bees, as well as a river of honey, flowed out of a wrecked semi in Idaho; and 17 million bees escaped a fatal truck crash in Minnesota last year. Why so many highway accidents involving bees? The uptick results from more and more honey bee colonies being transported around the country via highways in recent years. Local bee populations are rapidly dying off from a little-understood disease called 'colony collapse disorder': 'The number of managed honey bee colonies [in the U.S.] has dropped from 5 million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million today,' says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, some honey bee scientists suspect that the rise of migratory beekeeping may be contributing to the species' decline as transporting hives from farm to farm spreads pathogens to local bee populations."

Re:Goldfingerism

[Anonymous Coward]

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.

Nope, Occam's razor - the truck drivers smoke crystal meth to stay up driving, and tweak out with a truckload of bees. Ultimately they either flip their truck over swatting at non-existent bees, or some very bad decisions lead to actual bees getting into the cab.

Re:What is amazing

[pinfall]

The problem is persistent pesticides not directly transportation per se. Colony collapse was happening in other countries and populations recovered after Bayer's gaucho was pulled from pollinating farms.

Hauling bees

[Charliemopps]

My family farms cranberries, so I get to haul bees all the time. This doesn't have anything to do with missing honey bees. There are plenty of them where we're at. This is more like "Fertilizing" the bees. Farmers want more than natural usually provides. If they miss a season, it's no big deal. This is just the latest fad in "How to get more yield" In fact, most people near me are using bumble bees, which to my knowledge aren't having the problems honey bees are. Farmers share them around here. One sends his bees over, while you let him borrow a tractor, etc...

also, more accidents hauling bees? Yea... try hauling a couple hundred hives on a flatbed and it becomes obvious why there are so many crashes. They get into the cab... no mater how tight you've got the windows shut. We've taken to wearing bee suits while we drive. Then you have all the other people on the road that seem to drive differently, especially when they are on motorcycles or convertibles, when you pull up next to them with a couple million bees in tow.