More than 1,000 bees swarm plane's wing, delay American Airlines flight
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You don't always expect to get an entomology lesson when you board your plane, but passengers on an American Airlines flight at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport learned that wherever a queen bee goes, thousands of other bees will follow. That's true – and problematic – even if the queen decides that she'd like to explore the underside of an airplane wing.
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According to passenger (and KCBD news reporter) Karin McCay, the flight was delayed for an hour on Thursday after more than 1,000 bees flew into the wing, which meant that bee experts got to brush the dust off their white protective suits and remove the insects from the aircraft.
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McCay posted a series of pictures to Twitter and Facebook, showing the bee pros wielding what looked like a Shop-Vac (surely it was not a Shop-Vac) as they worked to de-bee the plane. McCay said that the passengers were "beemused" by the situation because what else can you do during that kind of flight delay except make puns?
In a statement to Road Warrior Voices, American Airlines spokesperson Andrea Huguely said:
"We had an issue at DFW with a swarm of bees yesterday afternoon, not once, but twice. A 767 came in from LAS and when the Fleet Service started unloading the aircraft, they noticed a lot of bees under the wing and stopped unloading the plane. We called a bee keeper out to deal with the situation. He captured the queen and the swarm and we finished unloading.
Unfortunately, not long after the bee keeper left, another swarm decided to visit the aircraft (same aircraft) for flight 70 to Frankfort, Germany. So, the bee keeper came back and recaptured the swarm. We were able to finish loading the cargo and bags shortly after 4:30 p. The flight took off for Frankfort at 4:48 p, about 1:13 minutes past its scheduled departure time. Not your usual everyday situation, but certainly something that our DFW team was able to handle."
But bees aren't always uninvited guests at world airports; Chicago-O'Hare, Lambert-St. Louis International and Seattle-Tacoma International all have apiaries – collections of beehives – on-site, as do airports in Canada, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. It's an unexpectedly positive situation, one that has tangible benefits for both the airports and the bees. The New York Times explains:
"The relationship is a symbiotic one: Urban beekeepers need more space, and airports have space to spare. Bees do well in urban environments where there are people to manage the hives, diversity of flowers and no agricultural pesticides."