- About 5 million bees traveling to Alaska were forced to stop in Atlanta, where most died, according to APM.
- Sarah McElria, who ordered the bees, was told by Delta that they would have to sit on the tarmac.
- Delta apologized for the “accident”.
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Millions of bees traveling to Alaska died in a Delta Air Lines flight after the plane was left on the runway in Atlanta, Georgia, after a diversion.
Alaska Public Media (APM) reported Wednesday that a Delta plane carrying a shipment of about 5 million bees to Anchorage, Alaska, has been forced to divert to Atlanta. Most of the bees died in the city of Georgia.
The shipment of 200 crates, ordered by Sarah McElria of Sarah’s Alaska Honey on behalf of 300 beekeepers in Alaska, carried 800 pounds of bees and was worth about $ 48,000.
The box office was to travel from Sacramento, California, to Anchorage Airport via Seattle, Washington. But the bees did not fit into the flight to Seattle and were instead diverted through downtown Delta in Atlanta.
Delta told McElrea that the bees would have to wait in a cool room last Saturday, but they were transferred to the tarmac the next day for fear that the bees would escape. McElrea told APM that the temperature in Atlanta was 80 degrees Fahrenheit on the day they were left there.
“I was really panicked when they found out that they had been moved outside because the pheromones that these bees emit are attractive to other bees that are native to the area,” she told APM. Because the bees were outside, it made it difficult to save those in the crates.
MacElrea told APM it linked to a “Georgia-based page” on Facebook. She contacted Edward Morgan, a beekeeper in Atlanta, Georgia, who told WABE radio in Atlanta that he and more than 20 others on the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers’ Association had rushed to the airport to try to save the bees.
“It’s devastating to see so many dead,” Julia Mahwood, a master beekeeper from Georgia, told WABE. “Just piles of dead bees that didn’t stand a chance because they were left without food and basically got lost in Delta’s machines.”
In an e-mail statement, a Delta spokesman told Insider: “Delta was informed of the situation with the shipment, which occurred on DL2390 from Sacramento to Atlanta, and quickly engaged the relevant internal teams to assess the situation.
“We have taken immediate action to implement new measures to ensure that events of this nature do not occur in the future. We contacted the client directly to apologize for the unpleasant situation. ”
McElrea did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment outside of normal business hours.
McElria told The New York Times in an interview that Alaskans are increasingly relying on imports for bees to pollinate crops for spring and fall harvests.
“People don’t realize how dependent we are on pollination bees,” McElria told the New York Times. “And this is just a waste, an absolute tragedy.
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