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Bees close national highway in Canada
An estimated 12 million angry honeybees threw traffic into chaos on Canada's arterial national highway on Monday.
An estimated 12 million angry honeybees threw traffic into chaos on Canada's arterial national highway on Monday.
Known as Trans-Canada Highway, the 7,800-km highway runs from the east coast to the west coast of the country, passing through all the 10 provinces.
The incident happened near St Leonard city in the province of New Brunswick early morning when a tractor-trailer loaded with 330 crates of honey-bees overturned.
As the truck-trailer rolled over its side, many crates broke open under the impact of the crash, causing honeybees to fly out. Each crate carried four hives of honeybees.
Police, emergency crews, paramedics and agriculture experts rushed to the spot as a large number of onlookers gathered to have a look the bizarre scene on the busy national highway.
The four-lane highway was closed as seven bee experts tried to bring the honeybees back to their hives.
Police said many onlookers were stung by the agitated bees. These included a television journalist who was stung about a dozen times when she tried to catch some bee noises on her microphone.
The authorities said the disoriented and agitated bees were sprayed with mist to calm them.
The bees were being transported back to Ontario province after being used to pollinate blueberry crops (which come into blossom in June) in the province of New Brunswick that has a shortage of honey bees.
