Tom Ferry finds himself standing in a bee suit on a countryside Whatcom County Road immersed in a “bee tornado.”
He knew that a swarm of bees was dangerous. However, when he heard of the semi-tock bed carrying hives that had leaned more than eight miles from his home on May 30th, he wanted to help the beekeeping community where he and his wife had brought so much peace.
“I was put in place at the moment when I actually had the opportunity to help,” Ferry said.
He joined dozens of other beekeepers already there, lifting the hive out of the ditch and carrying it to a nearby field. He wrapped strips of duct tape around his wrists and ankles to prevent bees from flying off the legs of their sleeves and pants.
Still, the ferry had 27 stab wounds on his ankles and forearms 90 minutes later, and went home down the window wearing a bee suit.
The next morning I woke up with the ferry OK, but my body started to hurt from the physical labor the day before. Calling the situation “very intense,” the ferry said he believes everyone has done everything they can.
No other injuries were reported after the Whatcom County crash that caused the virus. Most of the bees returned to their hives after being returned to the fields they just came.
Nevertheless, the ferries are one of the number of Washington beekeepers seeking a statewide “emergency plan” that will allow officials to respond faster. State officials and the Washington Beekeepers Association have begun to organize a team tasked with creating such a plan.
The truck was leaning towards about 4am, but the bees woke up and didn’t start to crowd until nearly 9am.
The difficulty in towing the truck bed from the groove and the delay caused by the vehicle owner’s need to record insurance losses means that the bees were unable to move the hive before they woke up. The bee owner got a semi-tulak and hired a driver, Pryst said.
The bee owner did not respond to a request for comment from the Seattle Times.
“I don’t know if the rules and regulations are blocking this,” Ferry said. “But as a human being, I know we can do better. We don’t have anything in place to make it happen now.”
How the bees escaped
Katie Buckley, health coordinator for pollinators at the state Agriculture Department, said she has received reports of US honeybees crashing, like when 14 million bees fled the crashed semi-tulak and began stabbing people in Lynnwood in 2015.
Responding to these crashes can be complicated. This is because first responders and bee owners are trying to protect the livelihoods of bee owners and to maintain public safety.
The massive amounts of bees, like those crashed in Whatcom County, are often worth up to $200,000, Plaisted said. And bee owners usually have to approve the work of crashed vehicles with their insurance companies and then approve the damaged one before the hive starts to respond.
Whatcom County Sheriff’s deputies saw the issue unfold on May 30th.
I called 911 and reported a semi-tulak that had crashed between West Badger Road and Lumis Trail Road near Linden at 4am.
The truck had just had 408 bees hives, and pollinated nearby blueberry field, and was on its way to Raspberry Field about 10 miles south.
As the driver left Blueberry Field and turned right onto Widekamp Road, the truck bed tilted towards the ditch, knocking part of the colony down onto the road.
The bees remained calm at first, and slept through cool, dark morning hours. But it was sorted out that he knew he had to act fast.
At the request of the bee owner, two tow trucks attempted to lift the truck bed out of the groove, but failed.
The owner then turned his attention to contacting the insurance company, but by then it was too late. It was nearly 9am, and the day was bright and warm, and the bees were awake.
Pollinators rose from the hives and swarmed, many then flew to stab sheriff deputies and emergency department workers who were standing nearby.
Create a future plan
State officials hope that the new “comprehensive plan” will provide guidance to beekeepers and law enforcement on how to respond faster whenever a similar crash occurs next, said Ellen Miller, vice president of the Beekeepers Association.
The team working on the plan was headed by representatives from the state’s Agriculture and Transportation Department, law enforcement, commercial beekeepers and Beekeepers Association, who called.
“One component that appears to be necessary after this incident is the standard for how to record hive losses or damaged hives immediately to ensure that insurance companies are happy,” Agriculture Department Buckley said in a phone call. “The hives don’t have to wait and they can recover much faster.”
Plaisted was skeptical of whether such standards, or whether statewide plans would be useful or enforceable.
Dealing with lawyers, tow truck companies, law enforcement and insurance agents after a crash is all time-consuming, and bee owners have no choice but to focus on financial liability, even if it means losing their hive.
“Swapping large amounts of bees is expensive, but possible. A multi-million dollar litigation is much more lame,” Plaisted said. “As a beekeeper, you’re working hard to keep your business up and the last thing you want is to lose it in a lawsuit.”
But Alan Woods, Centralia-based beekeeper and president of the Beekeepers Association, said the emergency plan would help. Speed is important in responding to collisions involving bees, he said.
Sometimes, like the 2015 Lynnwood spill, it means spraying the herd with foam ritanizer and water to protect people so that people are not stabbed after an accident to keep other drivers safe.
It also protects the hive and allows it to move to a safe location where honeybees can re-operate themselves. And the sooner it is, the better the chances of the bee survive.
Many of the bees eventually re-employed themselves after volunteer beekeepers moved their hives to nearby fields. But the risk of the bees being stabbed increases until they wait for the pack to move, Woods said, and the possibility that the bees will fly off and die.
“If I had known, I would have gone there at 4 o’clock and tried to help themselves,” he said.
For the ferry, the Whatcom County crash fell was an unexpected bounty.
In the days after the herd first appeared, he noticed more bees were appearing than usual in the traps around his property.
These “free bees” are currently caring for ferries, producing small batches of honey for sale at local farmers markets, and participating in the collective calming buzz of the colony.
However, the ferry is still thinking about bees that could have been saved if he and the other beekeepers could have approached the hives more quickly, if he knew how to better protect himself from their stab wounds.
“In that case, we didn’t think we were at our best, and some of it had to do with legal deficits and insurance,” he said. “But hopefully we can apply the necessary pressure to make some changes.”
