Bee swarm delays flight for 4 hours.

Buzzing News: Bees Delay Delta Flight from Houston to Atlanta

Passengers Live-Tweet Ordeal as Hundreds of Bees Congregate on Plane Wing

A commercial Delta Airlines flight from Houston to Atlanta was delayed for four hours on Wednesday due to an unexpected swarm of bees. The bees had congregated on the tip of one of the airplane wings, causing concern for both passengers and staff.

Author and scholar Anjali Enjeti live-tweeted the whole ordeal, expressing her disbelief at the situation. “My flight leaving Houston is delayed because bees have congregated on the tip of one of the wings,” she tweeted. “But how on earth will this happen? Won’t they leave the wing when we take off?”

According to Enjeti, the bees swarmed onto the plane as soon as it pulled up to the gate. Officials at the airport were originally going to call pest control, but then decided to call a beekeeper to attempt to hive the bees. However, the beekeeper was not allowed to touch the airplanes, and neither were pest controllers or the fire department. Airport workers did not have a hose to spray the plane, either.

In a last ditch effort, the pilot said he would taxi the plane in an effort to shake the swarm off. As soon as the plane’s engines turned on, the bees left.

Passengers were initially dismayed to learn that the gate was being given to another flight, and questions swirled as to whether they would be given another flight or if it would be canceled. Fortunately, the plane was transferred to another gate, and the passengers finally boarded the flight around 4:30.

Bee Swarms: A Common Occurrence

A professional apiarist who has experience removing swarms from airplanes told local news outlet KHOU that the swarm is very common this time of year, and that the bees were simply resting. “They usually start in the south and they move towards the north,” Mike Sexton, a.k.a. “The Bee Man,” said. “Whenever bee swarms start, they’re going to gorge themselves with a bunch of honey and the old queen is going to take off with a bunch of workers so they’re not going to eat again until they actually get to a new home, so in the meantime they rest and conserve their energy, so they land on anything.”

The Houston flight delay came just one day after another un-bee-lievable incident in Florida. More than a million bees swarmed a Florida highway Tuesday when a tractor trailer collided with another truck hauling more than five million of the insects on their way to produce honey. The beekeeper is still counting his losses, both financially and numerically, as many of them flew away from the scene of the crash. Fortunately, despite a million potential hazards in the air, no injuries were reported.