Bees can make their home almost anywhere, sometimes where it causes an inconvenience. A pest control professional cleared a bee swarm from a Major League Baseball field and later earned the opportunity to take the ceremonial first pitch before the delayed game.
The insect invasion occurred on April 30, 2024, at Chase Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona, before the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers faced off. Bees surrounded their queen in the cluster about 15 minutes before the game was set to begin, which caused the umpires, managers and officials from the home team to assess the situation.
They opted to call in Matt Hilton, branch manager at the local Blue Sky Pest Control office. “It was a little nerve-racking, I’m not going to lie,” Hilton said. “A lot of pressure to get this game going. But I was happy to come and take care of it.”
In his beekeeper outfit, Hilton used a scissor lift to ride under the bee swarm. The lift then elevated Hilton closer to danger before he used a non-pesticide spray on the swarm and vacuumed up the bees.
After completing the job, Hilton then took to the mound, while still in his beekeeper outfit, and buzzed in his ceremonial first pitch. “I didn’t feel very prepared,” Hilton said. “I’m not the best thrower in the world… It definitely wasn’t a strike.”
Hilton also mentioned that there was a high probability that the pests were Africanized honey bees, also known as killer bees. The bees might have turned aggressive if agitated by the net moving but they were instead taken out of the stadium and set free off-site.
After the two-hour delay, the Diamondbacks went on to beat the Dodgers 4-3.
Source: https://youtu.be/HTCQ6lAB_rg