Thursday, December 16, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Accident dumps millions of bees in Bowl

A front loader Wednesday dumps hives filled with honey bees from an overpass at the Spaghetti Bowl Wednesday. A truck carrying about 12 million bees hit a wall on the overpass, sending the buzzing load to the pavement and the desert below. Photo by John Locher. Bees cling to a concrete pillar after a Wednesday afternoon accident at the Spaghetti Bowl. Photo by John Locher.

The Highway Patrol troopers who frequent the Spaghetti Bowl have seen their share of culinary disasters at the busy interchange.

Through the years they've seen the likes of onions, french fries and raw meat spilled across the asphalt.

But they had never seen a spill like the one on Wednesday at the Interstate 15-U.S. Highway 95 interchange, when millions of bees, their hives and honey combs, fell off a truck onto an interchange ramp.

The spill forced troopers to close the ramp between southbound Interstate 15 and southbound U.S. Highway 95 for more than four hours after the 2:20 p.m. crash.

Taking care of the bees was another matter.

"Troopers are not beekeepers," trooper Angie Chavera said.

That's why they called Don Grogan, owner of Sedona Honey Co. in Las Vegas.

Grogan, a beekeeper for 46 years, said the truck was carrying 480 bee colonies, each with its own queen and roughly 25,000 honey bees. Grand total: 12 million bees.

They were among the millions that are trucked to the San Joaquin Valley in Central California each winter to pollinate 500,000 acres of almonds.

The pollination requires 1.5 million colonies, or more than 30 billion bees, many of which are trucked through the Las Vegas Valley every year, he said.

This load came from Utah.

Troopers think the driver lost control of the truck on the curving ramp.

The truck hit the wall, sending much of the load toppling more than 40 feet to a patch of desert. A front loader finished the job, shoveling the rest of the bees and their broken hives over the wall to the growing pile below.

Despite the sudden upheaval in their lives, the bees were surprisingly docile, Grogan said.

"They should be at their maddest," he said.

But their good behavior was not enough to save them.

Capturing the bees alive would take too much time and money, Grogan said.

Late Wednesday, the Las Vegas Fire Department doused the bees with water to kill them, and the bees' owner drove in from Utah.

He planned to work through the night to clean up the carcasses and debris, trooper Loy Hixson said.

"We're talking millions of bees," Grogan said. "And tomorrow they'll all be dead. ... It breaks my heart."