1M Bees Swarm Drivers After Tennessee Crash

Travelers on an east Tennessee interstate were forced to brake for workers—and drones, perhaps even a queen—when a truck carrying about 1 million bees crashed Friday. The swarm shut down an exit of Interstate 40 in Knoxville, said Mark Nagi, a Tennessee Department of Transportation spokesperson. There were no injuries, he said. "The ramp from I-40 East to Henley Street is back open but the truck is destroyed and the bees are… well… buzzing," Nagi posted, the AP reports, along with a photo of a person in beekeeper garb. "Unless you are dressed in this outfit please stay in your vehicles in this area." The driver of the truck is a beekeeper, per USA Today.

Later, Nagi confirmed that all of the bees had been moved from the area and that the truck was removed. What could not be as easily quelled were the puns. "So, this is the buzz around town?" US Rep. Tim Burchett wrote on social media. "This stuff just writes itself." The Virginia Department of Transportation commiserated on social media. Its northern division reminisced about a 2018 crash that similarly released a swarm of bees on Interstate 495, prompting the advice, "Please roll up your windows."