Posted on 08/17/2006 4:22:52 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
"Snakes on a Plane" may be the hot horror movie of the summer, but bees on planes are creating the most buzz in some aviation circles. Africanized honey bees -- the infamous "killer bees" -- are increasingly making unscheduled layovers at airports across the Southwest. The aggressive bees, which entered the U.S. from Mexico in the early 1990s, like to travel across open spaces and stop to rest whenever the queen gets tired. Airports have few trees or other natural rest stops. That makes planes, jetways, baggage-loading equipment, terminals and parking garages popular for stopovers.
Consequently, pilots and mechanics sometimes find thousands of bees burrowing in engine covers, clinging to cockpit windshields or swarming in the luggage compartment.
"The Africanized honeybee changed everything," says David Marder, the owner of Bee Busters, a Laguna Hills, Calif., pest-control outfit. He says that his exclusive deal with Orange County's John Wayne Airport, in Santa Ana, which he has serviced more than 20 times this year, is a big reason business has soared since the Africanized honeybee arrived in Orange County in 1996.
That is creating scenes like one that unfolded at Love Field in Dallas last April. Gordon Guillory, a 39-year-old Southwest Airlines mechanic, knew something wasn't right when he arrived at the hangar for his shift: A buzzing noise was coming not from the engine but from the tail of the Boeing 737-700.
"You really couldn't see them, but you knew there were tons of them in there because there were so many that would fly out," he says. "I've been working on airplanes for 15 years and I've never, ever seen anything like it."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Skunks on a plane would be bad too IMO.
They don't charge you a cent to play or add videos. I didn't even see the PayPal donation box or anything similar throughout my forays.
ooopsie
Well, if I can't take my bees on the plane, then the terrorists have already won.
They're just stinging the people American Honey Bees won't sting.
I adore these!
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