Excessive speed may have been the cause of an early Friday morning crash that spilled an estimated 14 million bees onto Interstate 5 near Lynnwood, WA

The truck, carrying 458 hives of live bees, was headed for a blueberry farm in Lynden, WA, tipped over in the pre-dawn hours. The driver said he blew a tire, but State Patrol investigators indicate he may have been traveling too fast.

Millions of bees were killed in the crash, but efforts were being made to save the others. Each of the hives held about 25-30,000 insects. The accident, which occurred near the merging of I-405 onto I-5, shut down two lanes of traffic for several hours.

State Patrol officials said during while it was still dark the bees remained fairly quiet, but as the sun came up after the crash, they became much more "active."

The unnamed driver, a 26-year-old man from Idaho, was not hurt in the crash.  Officials didn't know initially how many of the hives could still be delivered to the blueberry farm, where they would have been used to pollinate plants.

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