Bees Are Escaping At An Alarming Rate – A Truck In Washington State Carrying 250 Million* Bees Tipped Over, Bees Went Everywhere
NY Times – In the northwest corner of Washington State on Friday morning, the authorities issued a most unusual all-points bulletin, rather, an A.P.Bee.
They said in the alert to the public that 250 million fugitives were at large.
A tractor-trailer carrying 70,000 pounds of pollinator hives and bees had rolled over on a country road near Lynden, Wash., releasing an eye-popping number of honeybees, the authorities said.
“250 million bees are now loose,” the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Department wrote on social media.
I’m going to go with 250 million as the number of escaped bees from the overturned truck in Washington States. I’ve seen more recent reports that say the number is actually closer to 14 million bees. Other reports quantify the number of bees in pounds (70,000 pounds of bees). But the New York Times originally said 250 million bees, and that the highest, most alarming number of bees for a headline. So 250 million bees it is.
They say it’s unclear what exactly caused the truck to flip over. But hear me out. I’m guessing this probably isn’t the case, but is it possible that the bees tipped the truck? Can 250 million bees working together under the direction of Jerry Seinfeld produce enough force to turn over a semi? Maybe if they all pushed together at once?
I did the dumb guy math.
According to an AI Overview that popped up on the top of Google after I search it, a single honey bee can exert peak force of 23 to 43 mN (millinewtons).
1 mN = 0.000225 lbf (pound of force). So if we split the difference and say each honey bee produced 33 mN’s of force.
33 x 0.000225 = 0.007425 lbf per bee
0.007425 lbf x 250,000,000 bees = 1,856,250 lbf
I’m no John Brenkus (RIP to the legend), but I’d think 1,856,250 pounds of force in one direction seems like enough to tip a semi. Even it was only 14 million bees (because realistically I think that’s the more accurate number).
CBS News – Initially, officials said that some 250 million bees escaped but they corrected the tally on Saturday, citing a beekeeper who assisted at the scene.
"Thank you to those who challenged the math and helped us get closer to the true number," officials said.
Again, this is probably the most uneducated math I've ever done, but even at 14 million bees, that's still 103,950 pounds of force. That semi-truck maybe weighed somewhere between 10,000-20,000 pounds? I’m just saying… what if whoever loaded the bees accidentally put that slut queen along one side of the trailer? Have you ever seen a colony of bees swarm a queen when she opens her legs?
Like a group of London incels when they hear Bonnie Blue is tied up in a glass box. They make a beeline (pun intended) to that enormous pussy. Maybe millions of impossibly horny bees pushing in one direction is enough to tip a semi-truck. Until I hear a better explanation, that’s what I’m reporting. You heard it here first. The honeybees were so horny that they inadvertently wrecked a semi truck to gain their freedom. Good for the bees (even though they're claiming they managed to capture and return most of them).
Authorities said the road where the truck overturned was closed for about 24 hours to allow the bees to re-hive and find their queen bee.
More than two dozen beekeepers came to assist with the rescue, the sheriff's office said, adding: "The goal is to save as many of the bees as possible."
"At this time, on-scene work is done. Hive boxes from the overturned truck were recovered, restored and returned to use," authorities said in an update. "By morning, most bees should have returned to their hives and those responsible for their delivery will be in charge."