Things were really humming Sunday at Florin Road and Highway 99.
A big rig loaded with 440 colonies – hives to the layman – populated by 8 million bees flipped over onto its side on the onramp to northbound 99, scattering countless numbers of the valuable insects.
Traffic on 99 wasn't affected, but the ramp was closed from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. as bees were gathered and loaded onto two other trucks. Emergency crews hauled away the wrecked truck, and a state Department of Transportation crew swept up the dead bees.
"Things were pretty messed up there for a while," said Jesse Young of Sacramento, a 66-year-old former beekeeper who was called to the scene by the California Highway Patrol to help corral the little varmints.
Getting information about the incident wasn't made any easier when CHP Officer Michael Bradley, reached by phone at the scene, had to sign off abruptly while he went at it with a bee in his car. Once he got that situation under control, Bradley was back on the line.
The colonies, packed in crates on pallets, had to be unloaded and reloaded by hand until a forklift finally arrived, Bradley said.
Bees are a prized commodity these days, given a nationwide shortage of the insect that's critical to pollination of a wide variety of farm crops. Hives have recently been struck with the mysterious colony collapse disorder, in which thousands of bees simply go missing.
Researchers suspect a variety of factors – including parasites, pesticides and viruses – for the losses.
Sunday's accident scattered bees that were bound for Yakima, Wash., after likely having worked in Central Valley almond orchards, Young said. He estimated the load to be worth "between $75,000 and $80,000."
Young said he helped unload and reload the bees for a while, along with "a couple of pretty strong boys who were beekeepers in Romania. I could have done more, I guess, but I'm getting too old for that kind of stuff."
Young said "there were a lot of dead bees on the ground," but the ones who didn't meet that fate will not stray far.
"They would only move away in a swarm, and they won't do that," Young added. "They will stay around and try to get into a colony. They go by smell, and they can find their own colony."
Young predicted it would be tough to make sure the colonies were in good shape.
"They'll have to go through them all and make sure there's only one queen in a colony," he said. "As it stands now, there are probably some without queens and some with more than one. Where there's more than one, all but one will be killed."
He said this work will probably be done in the nearest prune or apple orchard before the bees are put on a truck and back on the road again to Washington.
Call The Bee's Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189.
