Millions of honey bees were left to bake to death in a box
More than five million honey bees were left to die in the hot sun, after a Delta Airlines shipment on its way to Alaska was diverted and left on hot asphalt in Atlanta.
The 200 boxes of honey bees, which weighed about 800 pounds, were the first of two shipments shipped from Sacramento, California to Anchorage, Alaska.
There, more than 300 beekeepers waited for their pollination services in apple orchards.
Earlier shipments had arrived in Alaska, on Delta Airlines flights from Sacramento to Seattle, then on to Anchorage, but this trip was diverted.
Atlanta Beekeeper Edward Morgan is working on opening a box of bees while Ellen Ausley lights a flashlight in one of two cargo boxes of bees
Edward Morgan was one of the beekeepers in Atlanta who rushed to save millions of dying bees at Atlanta Airport in Georgia
A beekeeper is examining a package of mostly dead bees at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport Sunday night
According to a report in the New York Times, there was no room on the plane on its way to Seattle, which led to it being diverted through the Delta hub in Atlanta last Friday, where the bees would then travel on to Anchorage the next day.
While the bees were first placed in a cooler, they were later removed and left on the asphalt, in 83 degrees Fahrenheit heat, due to some of them escaping from the box.
After sending a local expert to examine the bees, it was found that they had been placed upside down, without access to food, and millions had died. The rest was given away, meaning no one could be delivered to Alaska.
The bees were the first of two shipments ordered by Alaska beekeeper Sarah McElrea from a distributor in California.
Millions of bees were left to die on an asphalt out in the Georgia sun after a shipment from California to Alaska was diverted to Georgia
box of bees that died of starvation after a cargo box was left out in the hot sun at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport
Beekeepers are seen checking to see if a queen in one of the packs of bees had survived
McElrea said she was concerned when the 800-pound shipment did not arrive in Atlanta in time to complete the connecting flight. The next day, she said, Delta told her some bees had escaped, so airline workers put the boxes that kept the bees outside a Delta cargo area.
In a panic, McElrea reached a beekeeper in Atlanta, who hurried to the airport and discovered that many of the bees had died from the heat and hunger.
Delta called it an “unfortunate situation.”
In an email, Delta spokeswoman Catherine Morrow said the airline was made aware of the shipping situation … and quickly engaged the relevant internal teams to assess the situation. We have implemented immediate measures to implement new measures to ensure that incidents of this kind do not occur in the future. ‘
Many of the bees were saved thanks to the quick response from the bee community. Pictured above, a beekeeper from Atlanta
Edward Morgan from the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association talks about the condition of the bees
A group of beekeepers perform triage on the bees that were lying on the asphalt at Atlanta airport
Morrow said Delta apologized to McElrea. The airline refused to make anyone available for an interview.
McElrea said in the future that she would take a fleet of vehicles to transport the bees directly to Seattle from Sacramento, where they could fly to Alaska.
The bees were to be used to pollinate apple orchards and nurseries in Alaska, where they are not native.
A beekeeper in Atlanta, Edward Morgan, called more than a dozen people to go to the airport and try to save bees that were still alive.
“It’s devastating to see so many dead,” Georgia beekeeper Julia Mahood told Atlanta broadcaster WABE. “Only clumps of dead bees that had no chance because they were left outside without food and mostly got lost in Delta’s machinery.”
McElrea, who runs a business called Sarah’s Alaska Honey, said she had received previous shipments of honey bees on the Delta from Sacramento, California, to Anchorage via Seattle many times.
The airline told her that last weekend’s shipment did not fit on the plane, so they were diverted through Atlanta.
McElrea said her California supplier would replace the shipment, which was worth around $ 48,000.
She said she hopes Delta provides some help, although she acknowledged that shipping live animals poses a risk.
A beekeeper is working on unloading a cargo box of bees at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport
A flashlight shines in while a beekeeper examines the condition of the stranded bees. The vast majority of bees died in the heat, but several thousand were rescued
