I’ve come very close to driving off the road and killing innocent people in the past when a spider dropped down from the headliner of my car onto the steering wheel, so imagine the reaction when drivers on a highway had to drive through millions of swarming bees.
It happened this morning in Newark, Delaware when the driver of a tractor trailer overturned his truck on a highway ramp, releasing his cargo of about 16-20 million honey bees. The driver and two passengers were taken to a nearby hospital with about 50 to 100 stings each and other people driving by on the highway were also stung.
Bee handlers were brought in and worked with firefighters to spray water to disperse the bees. I’m not sure if we have one of these, but the authorities there have a “Honeybee Swarm Removal Plan” that they put into action for the first time. The highway ramp where this happened was closed for twelve hours, according to the Idaho Press Tribune.