After March 17 rollover along Highway 230, ‘bee people’ work to save millions of pollinators
By Buffy Pollock
Rogue Valley Times
One week after a semi-truck loaded with more than 400 commercial bee boxes jackknifed, sending millions of pollinators and wooden boxes down a steep canyon in a remote area of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, Eagle Point beekeeper Tristen Tartaglia and some four dozen good Samaritans have saved more than half of the displaced bees.
Chilly temperatures on Tuesday night coincided with final efforts to patch together broken boxes and encourage agitated swarms to follow their queens into the temporary makeshift hives.
The crash occurred March 17 along Highway 230, about nine miles past rural Prospect, after Highway 62 turns toward Bend. Oregon State Police officials confirmed the truck, registered to LeFore Farm Fresh Honey LLC, flipped over and lost its load resulting in closure of the highway for several hours. Owners of the company declined to attempt recovery of surviving bees and reportedly planned to contact beekeepers in the region to assess the site.
Attempts to contact LeFore Farm Fresh Honey were unsuccessful via email and phone. According to an online search, the company has been registered with the Oregon Secretary of State’s office as far back as 1999, operating in Milton-Freewater and at multiple sites in Montana. Registered agent for the company, Jeff LeFore, was featured in a Capital Press article in 2013 highlighting his techniques for ensuring bee health.
On Tuesday night, following a three-day rescue effort, which continued on a smaller scale Wednesday for cleanup and locating any surviving bee clusters, Tartaglia told the Rogue Valley Times that she heard about the accident when it first happened but wondered about the outcome.
“Everybody thought it was handled and nobody was talking about it anymore. We got curious and decided to go check it out,” she told the Times.
Tartaglia and her partner Chuck Skeen discovered shards of boxes covering a steep embankment off Highway 230 near Crater Lake, and millions of bees; some had died, but millions were still swarming.
“There was no caution tape, there was nothing. I thought, ‘How is this all still here?’ I knew the bees were going to die if we didn’t do something.”
Concerned about cooling night temperatures and forecasts for rain hindering survival odds for the tiny pollinators, Tartaglia, Skeen and a handful of others rigged a daisy chain and climbed into the heavily wooded canyon, navigating clusters of fragile bees to retrieve broken boxes for repair.
Once home on Sunday night, sore from dragging heavy boxes up the hillside, Tartaglia took to social media, posting a video urging “anyone with bee suits and a desire to help” to meet at the location on Monday. A small crew of helpers returned on Monday, including Central Point beekeeper Teresa Reavis, Prospect resident Thayern Rowden, California resident — Tartaglia’s friend — Beth Farrell, and a beekeeper in his late 70s identified as Ming.
Tartaglia’s video made the rounds on social media — amassing 2.5 million views in less than two days — drawing 40 to 50 helpers from around the region who converged on the site on Tuesday.
“I met people from Eugene, Roseburg, Crescent City, Yreka… people showed up in bee suits and got to work,” Tartaglia said, noting that non-beekeepers even donned suits to help keep things moving.
“We were really worried the wax and discarded honey and leftover box pieces would fuel any wildfires this coming summer so we wanted to see it through. … Daisy chaining stuff up the hill was incredible. It was one of the more amazing experiences I’ve had.”
With some 30,000-50,000 bees per hive, coordinators estimated between 12 to 20 million bees were involved in the crash. Trisha Falconê, a Yreka, Calif., resident and friend of Tartaglia, saw Tartaglia’s video and stepped in to help respond to comments and spread the word. Falconê said she “felt a duty to reach out to the bee community and whoever else would help.”
“Tristen is pretty driven in anything she does, so when she came across those bees and posted the video, I knew she wouldn’t stop until she could save them all,” Falconê told the Times.
“You have to realize how strong she is — physically and her will. When she decides to do something, it will get done. When I saw that wreck sight, I knew if I didn’t reach out to the bee keeping community, Tristen would do it alone.”
On Wednesday, a sore and fatigued Tartaglia monitored final cleanup efforts from home, suggesting a heat-sensing camera to locate surviving bees. Tartaglia, a member of the Southern Oregon Beekeepers Association, said she had an overwhelming sense of gratitude — for emergency responders not spraying chemical foam to subdue — and likely kill — the bees following the crash; for OSP officials giving the OK for retrieval; and for the camaraderie of “bee people.”
Tartaglia said the bees were extremely healthy, which likely contributed to their holding out for rescue. She counts the entire experience as a blessing.
“A swarm, to feel it in nature with just one swarm, is off the chart amazing, a mandatory bucket list item,” she said Wednesday. “To be in the presence of hundreds of swarms was a once in a lifetime thing. I just remember staring up at them all and hoping they knew that I was doing the very best that I could.
“If you look at the silver lining,” she added, “the bees brought people together.”
For more information on final recovery and cleanup efforts at the site, reach Tartaglia at [email protected].
Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or [email protected].
Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.
Reprinted with Rogue Valley Times permission
