Bee-ware: Beekeeper loses hives on Eastern Washington highway

SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Drivers and Washington State Department of crews were abuzz about something unusual on an Eastern Washington highway last week.

It what could have been a sticky situation, a commercial beekeeper lost four beehives on State Route 902, just west of Interstate 90, according to the West Plains Beekeepers Association.

WSDOT said maintenance crews were able to move the hives off the road. They then contacted beekeepers in Medical Lake, who came to the scene to salvage them.

“The hives were in bad shape, and there were many dead bees. We salvaged what we could and took them to the club apiary,” the beekeepers association said in a Facebook post.

The incident was not the first that involved bees on a Washington state highway, but one was the most memorable.

In 2015, millions of bees spilled onto Interstate 5 in Lynnwood when the semitruck carrying them overturned.

Numerous boxes of bees were crushed in the crash. Each box contained about 5,000 bees. The Washington State Patrol said the load contained a total of about 13.7 million bees.

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