Millions of honeybees fled into a rural Texas neighborhood after a trailer carrying about 400 hives overturned, officials said.
Emergency officials in Orange County, Texas, closed roads in the area Sunday morning and warned residents to stay home while crews worked to unload the trailer and rescue as many beehives as possible. The county is located east of Houston and borders the state of Louisiana.
A semi-trailer carrying about 400 beehives overturned, allowing millions of bees to escape into a rural neighborhood in Orange, Texas, on June 21, 2026.
Christy Ray/Queen Bee Supply via AP
No bee stings or serious injuries were immediately reported. Officials did not identify the owner of the beehives.
Christy Ray, who owns nearby Queen Bee Supply, said volunteers from three or four other beekeeping businesses in the area went to the scene Sunday to help.
“They just help each other out, that’s what they do,” Ray said. “The beekeeping community is a great community.”
Workers move beehives after a semi-trailer carrying about 400 beehives overturned, allowing millions of bees to escape into a rural neighborhood in Orange, Texas, on June 21, 2026.
Christy Ray/Queen Bee Supply via AP
Chris Moore, owner of Moore’s Honey, along with his son and several employees, have joined the effort to help the bees, but he estimates that only about a quarter of his 408 beehives will survive. He said it mostly depends on how many queens survive the accident.
The potential impact on the beekeeping business after a loss like this depends on the size of the apiary. The keeper not only loses the beehives, but also loses the revenue they could generate, Moore noted.
“It’s a huge loss,” Moore said. “Any time you lose that many in one fell swoop, it’s a big loss.”
Bees are seen after a semi-trailer carrying about 400 beehives overturned, allowing millions of bees to escape into a rural neighborhood in Orange, Texas, on June 21, 2026.
Christy Ray/Queen Bee Supply via AP
It is common for large beekeeping operations to move beehives around the country to provide commercial pollination for agriculture in places like California and to follow flowering seasons throughout the South and Midwest to produce honey.
The hives that crashed Sunday had only traveled a few miles on a trip to North Dakota when the truck driver took a wrong turn and ended up in a neighborhood with narrow roads, Moore said. The driver was trying to negotiate a tight corner when the trailer fell.
Other local rangers have set up trap boxes to collect stray remains, but it will likely take some time for the insects to move out of the area, Moore said.
Last April, a crash with a truck full of bees slowed interstate traffic near Knoxville, Tennessee.
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