30,000 Bees Swarm Tollbooth and Gas Station in China

An estimated 30,000 bees were on the loose in East China earlier this week, after the insects managed to escape from a truck.

Video footage of the incident shows the swarm of bees flying around a tollbooth on a highway in Zhejiang province’s Huzhou. According to City Bulletin, three tollbooth workers and two gas station attendants were stung as a result of the bee-sanity and taken to a local hospital for treatment. Three tollbooth lanes were also temporarily closed.

Watch below to see the madness unfold (VPN off):

The fire department was called in to handle the situation, which had also spread to a nearby gas station. All of the bees were either caught or killed within an hour and a half of the breakout.

One of the firefighters described the process of recapturing the flying insects at the tollbooth and gas station, telling City Bulletin “The two places are different. At the highway tollbooth we were well-equipped with brushes to gather the bees into foam boxes, and then with cardboard boxes to cover them. However, the bees at the gas station were harder to catch because they were higher, so we used water guns to knock them down.”

While it’s not clear how they escaped the truck, local reports note the bees might have been provoked by the smell of gasoline while the trucker was refueling or because of the sweltering heat.

[Cover image: screengrab via @都市快报/Weibo]