As many as five million honeybees that were being shipped from California to Alaska died after the air shipment was delayed and the container they were being transported in was left outside in searing heat.
Beekeeper Sarah McElrea had ordered the honeybees from a Californian distributor to pollinate apple orchards in Alaska because they are not native to the region.
McElrea had honeybees shipped to Alaska in the past without any issues but on this occasion, the first of a two-leg journey from Sacramento to Anchorage Seattle was diverted to Atlanta because the shipment of 200 crates didn’t fit on the first plane.
Once the flight had touched down in Atlanta, there were no more immediate options to get the massive shipment of honeybees to Anchorage so the container was placed into storage in a Delta Air Lines cargo shed while rerouting options were worked out.
Unfortunately, it seems that while in the temperature-controlled storage shed, some of the bees escaped so Delta workers decided to move the cargo container containing 800 pounds of honey bees outside so that no one got stung.
During this period, it appears that the container was not only moved upside down, but that the bees were left out in 83-degree heat. Most of the five million honeybees, worth an estimated $48,000, perished.
A spokesperson for Delta said the incident was “unfortunate” and that as soon as the airline became aware of the situation it “quickly engaged the appropriate internal teams to assess the situation.”
“We have taken immediate action to implement new measures to ensure events of this nature do not occur in the future,” the airline said in a statement.
McElrea got in contact with local beekeepers in the Atlanta area to go to the airport but they found “clumps of dead bees that had no chance because they were left outside with no food and basically got lost in Delta´s machinery.”
In the future, McElrea says she may resort to driving shipments of honeybees from Sacramento to Seattle to avoid a similar incident occuring.
I have worked along with delta airlines and most workers that I have witnessed they don’t care about the work quality I’ve have seen them throw luggage like garbage now you wonder why your stuff comes in broken and delta will always lie and never see the actual truth why u think you always hear death of animals on delta because of work quality what goes on and if u look around you can figure the type of ppl that work there gives you the full answer why not only that on top of that low pay they get
There is no bloody god. None. If there were, all humans would be going to hell based on how we treat other living beings.
The worst are idiots that dig into meat and preach about god. Like god would really like you to kill one of his creations when you have other means of feeding yourself. Effing idiots with astounding level of cognitive dissonance.
More mouth breathing knuckle dragging airline employees and Delta in particular. I’m sure the box had silly words on it like “fragile” or “this side up” or maybe even “live bees”. The “live bees” label is probably why they “escaped”, because some fool had to look in the box, was surprised there were actual bees in it, and they forklifted the box out to dump on the the tarmac. Delta won’t care though. Just file an insurance claim and hope for the best.
Horrible. Simply horrible.
Majority of the people work there are blacks and dominicans and south americans who just got off the boat and as well minorities and airline uses propaganda who most don’t have college if the place uses people with real college degree and none minorities the delta airline would be in tip top look are their neighborhood where they mostly live and they treat the work place just as the same where they live is this racist? no it’s a fact stereotype type maybe airline rather hire these ppl so they can save money that’s why work quality is poor they both damage each other but delta will always stand because they have money and it brings money to gov
Even Black people,Dominicans and other minorities have heard of full stops and can write better English than the bile that you have posted. And yes, it is racist.
Seems like God took revenge on people trying to un-naturally ship bees to Alaska so there is that.
Yeah… Trafficking in Bees…. Surely the bees didn’t want to get shipped aboard an airplane… I’d be suing the human exploiter!!