"Why Are They Doing This?" Packed Together... Honeybees Die Suddenly as Heatwave Continues

[Anchor]

Animals and plants are also suffering amid this scorching heat. Beekeeping farms are worried about the mass mortality of bees, while flower farms fear their plants are drying up and dying.

Reporter Kwon Min-kyu went to the scene.

[Reporter]

Today (July 30), at a beekeeping farm in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, where a heatwave warning was issued during the day.

Thousands of honeybees are clinging to the entrances of each of the more than 80 beehives.

As the intense heat turned the interiors into steam chambers, they evacuated outside the hives.

Farmers lift shade cloths to block the sunlight and spray water every hour, but it is far from enough to cool down the heat.

The honeycomb I am holding right now usually has about 5,000 bees on it.

However, there are only about 1,500 bees on both sides now.

Because the weather is so hot, the bees have escaped toward the entrance or scattered in all directions.

[Jeong Byeong-woo / Beekeeper: First, hornets come. Second, toads come. They come at night and eat (the bees).]

In addition, due to the heatwave, the queen bee's spawning and hatching are not taking place properly, raising fears that it could lead to mass mortality.

[Kim Seon-hee / Former Gyeonggi Branch President, Korean Beekeeping Association: People are dying right now too. How can mute insects survive? I feel like the temperature goes up by about 2 degrees Celsius each year.]

Such worries are no different in floral complexes.

Succulents and cacti are struggling in the heat, and the only facilities to cool them down are ventilation fans for air circulation.

This is the inside of a farm measuring over 3,966 square meters.

The indoor temperature right now is 36.5°C (98°F), the same as human body temperature.

Even cacti, which grow in hot weather, have ended up dying like this.

[Gu Hwa-soon / Flower Farmer: Since cacti are 90% water, if it's humid, they turn mushy. A lot of them die in the summer. There's nothing we can do.]

In an already hot summer, the hearts of the farmers are also burning up.

(Photo courtesy of Yonhap News)
(Reported by Yang Ji-hoon | Video by Choi Hye-ran)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.