- The match was postponed for more than 90 minutes to get rid of the bee colony
- A beekeeper was cheered by the home crowd after the removal of the colony
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The start of the Arizona Diamondbacks game against the Los Angeles Dodgers was postponed due to a bee colony swarming behind home plate, forcing the evacuation of seats in a few sections.
The match was scheduled to start at 7:00 PM local time in Phoenix, with a delay of more than 90 minutes so that the bees could be successfully removed from the field of play.
The postponement also caused the Diamondbacks to change their starting pitcher for Tuesday’s game. Jordan Montgomery was replaced by Brandon Hughes.
Several Spring Training games have been postponed due to swarms of bees, especially in Arizona with extremely high temperatures.
Chase Field has a retractable roof, but was open Tuesday night, bringing in the bees.
The swarm of bees rested behind home plate in the net to catch foul balls in Phoenix
All bee seats were temporarily evacuated so they could be removed
Players waited more than 90 minutes for the match to start, including Shohei Ohtani
Finally, a beekeeper was lifted to the pole 30 feet above the ground where the swarm was located. He sprayed and vacuumed them out of sight.
Over the Chase Field speakers as the bug spray was deployed, Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” sounded appropriately.
After the colony was no longer in the playing field, the beekeeper was lowered to field level and the crowd pumped up. On Tuesday evening he received a big round of applause from those present.
During the delay, the Diamondbacks official X account posted several bee facts.
‘Nearly 90% of wild plants and 75% of major global crops depend on animal pollination. One in three bites of our food depends on pollinators such as bees. Crops that depend on pollination are five times more valuable than crops that do not,” reads one of the bee facts.
The Mariners official report responded with its own facts in a Message of 4,776 words.
The match officially started at 8:36 PM local time.