Arizona beekeeper saves the day as swarm descends on Diamondbacks game
Published: May 2, 2024, 8:37 p.m.
Five minutes before game time at Chase Field on Tuesday night, Mike Rock, the Arizona Diamondbacks' vice president of ballpark operations, received a worried phone call.
Bees had begun to congregate at the top of the 30-foot netting behind home plate. Rock wanted to know how many.
“Hundreds,” Kat McDonald, the Diamondbacks’ senior manager of events told him. “No, wait, thousands.”
“I knew,” Rock said later, “we had a problem then.”
What transpired was a night unlike any other in Diamondbacks history, one featuring an exterminator, clad in a beekeeper’s mask, being raised 30 feet in the air on a scissor lift in front of a captivated crowd of 28,667.
Eventually, the bees were taken away and the game between the Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers got underway. But not until a little drama had unfolded first.
Blue Sky branch manager Matt Hilton was at his son’s T-ball game in Surprise. He said he would need 45 minutes to get there. Rock tried calling another company, but their exterminator was just as far away.
Rock said there was talk of canceling the game. Instead, they waited for Hilton, who eventually arrived around 7:50 p.m., pulling up to the loading dock east of the ballpark, where a golf cart was waiting to ferry him onto the field.
Beekeeper Matt Hilton removes a bee swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Bees swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Fans are asked to leave the area as bees swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton suits-up to remove a bee colony on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Los Angeles Dodgers Shohei Ohtani (17) as a bee colony forms on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton removes a bee colony on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Fans point to the bees swarming on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Arizona mascot Baxter points at a bee colony that formed on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024A bee colony forms on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll (7) and second base Ketel Marte (4) watch as a bee colony forms on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Bees swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Bees swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton reacts as fans cheer his arrival to remove a bee colony on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts (50) applauded the lift driver as a bee colony formed on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton removes a bee swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton threw out the ceremonial first pitch after removing a swarm of bees on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton arrives to remove a swarm of bees on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton reacts as fans cheer as he is rushed to remove a bee swarm on the home plate net delaying the start of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024Beekeeper Matt Hilton suits up to remove a bee colony on the net high above home plate that caused a two-hour delay of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on April 30, 2024
