Bees Fall Off Truck, Are Too Cold to Care : Hives Spilled but Bees Keep Their Cool

Thousands of bees, so stunned that they couldn’t even sting, were left temporarily homeless in a most precarious place today when their hives fell off a truck and crashed onto the Foothill Freeway in La Canada-Flintridge.

Sgt. Walt Nowakowski of the California Highway Patrol said it could have been a very dangerous situation if the weather had been hot what with countless angry bees taking out their wrath on passing commuters.

Fortunately, he said, it was a chilly morning and the bees, rendered lethargic by the cold, just lay there amid the wreckage of their hives until they could be rescued.

Nowakowski credited Los Angeles County Agricultural Inspector Michael Pearson and an unidentified beekeeper with saving the bees.

He said Pearson, a bee expert, was dispatched to the scene and the beekeeper responded when he heard about the accident on the radio. They simply swept the insects up and put them in foster hives until the owner, apparently unaware the hives had fallen off his truck, shows up to claim them.