Disaster response "Bee Platoon" deployed to help beekeepers after LA fires
DAVIS – With many plotting ways to help after the destructive wildfires in Los Angeles, a unique first responder is getting their first deployment to a disaster.
The Bee Platoon is a newly-formed nonprofit organization that will respond to disasters to help beekeepers.
Patrick Hardy is the Master Beekeeper for the California Master Beekeeper Program, based at UC Davis, and the executive director of the Bee Platoon.
"We are going to be deployed out to the Altadena area," Hardy said. "Because we're attached to emergency management agencies, so we're working with them in a volunteer organization capacity, we're actually going to be assisting by being on call at all times when first responders are running across bees and swarms. I and other colleagues will go directly to that swarm to help remove it so that firefighters can continue to do their work and get to the real human victims that are out there at each of their homes."
More than 100 beekeepers have been evacuated from the Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas, according to information from the California Master Beekeeper Program.
Hardy will be bringing equipment and supplies to help beekeepers evacuate or shelter their bees.
"We're actually working with other beekeepers throughout the country and throughout the state to actually get bees to help replenish them," Hardy said. "So providing new supplies, new hives, everything that was destroyed because we can't take for granted any of our pollinators. We can't risk any more of them."
Hardy will be heading to Southern California on Saturday. He plans to make a second trip in February to do the recovery phase to help reestablish hives.
