Waynesville man drives 40 miles with 3,000 bees loose in truck cab

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) - A local man drove about 40 miles from Weaverville to Waynesville on Tuesday with thousands of bees loose in the cab of his truck.

Wallace Leatherwood’s friends were all abuzz and contacted WLOS with his information so we could get one question answered - why?

Leatherwood bought about 18,000 bees from Wild Mountain Bees in Weaverville.

"I put them in the back of the truck and went to look at a job," Leatherwood, who builds retaining walls, said. "Left there and went to Moe's Original Bar B Que."

Before going into the restaurant, Leatherwood moved the three boxes of bees from the bed to the cab of the truck.

"I didn't have any shady place to sit them," Leatherwood said. "When I came out, [one of the boxes] was black with bees, and there were bees everywhere. I thought, well, I don't know what to do."

What would you do?

"I didn't want to lose my bees. They were $165 [per box],” Leatherwood said.

So, Leatherwood did what any logical person would do with about 3,000 bees fling around inside his truck.

"I thought, well, I'm gonna stop in where my son works at Ken Wilson Ford. They're a bunch of scaredy-cats," Leatherwood said.

Brandon Singleton, who works with Leatherwood's son, shot video of the bees in the truck.

"I knew he was crazy, but I didn't know how crazy he was until I walked out," Singleton said. "And, man, there was just bees everywhere."

There were even bees on Interstate 40, where Leatherwood shot a video of his own, while sitting in traffic.

"It is dangerous. I know what you're going to say. 'Oh, you need to have an EpiPen and you should have a bee suit.' Well, I don't use a bee suit 99 percent of the time, so I'm just cool with them," Leatherwood said.

They were cool with him, too. He did not get stung once the entire drive.