One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"Twins separated at birth both become cement truck drivers..."}]

One more for 1 15 26

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>One More For The Road: Thursday, January 15, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Twins separated at birth both become cement truck drivers...

One More For The Road: Thursday, January 15, 2026

 Twins separated at birth both become cement truck drivers...

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

Despite an influx of moisture-laden weather in June, data from the National Weather Service (NWS) show that the last three months have remained historically dry.

For many communities, the period between March 21 and June 20 was one of the driest in recorded history.

Riverton got 1.01 inches of total precipitation between March 21 and June 20, only 28% of its historical average. That’s officially Riverton’s driest spring since 1996.

Buffalo didn’t fare much better, with 1.91 of the 6.18 inches of precipitation it usually gets. It was Buffalo’s driest spring since 1998.

With the wettest months of Wyoming’s year in the past, meteorologists are anticipating an exceptionally dry summer.

“I'm not surprised,” Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said. “March was so bad, April was not great, May was really bad in places, and June has been a bust. Those months are so critical, and they didn’t come through for us.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Confirmation Bias"}]

None of Wyoming’s meteorologists were surprised the 2026 spring season was so dry. It’s comparable to confirming how a murder has been committed when the murderer has already been tried and convicted after a thorough confession.

“Weather systems have been going around the fringes of Wyoming all season,” meteorologist Joshua Rowe with the NWS office in Riverton said. “It affected every region differently, but it was dry across the board.”

The reason for the dry season was the same phenomenon that made the 2025-2026 winter season historically dry. A series of stubborn high-pressure ridges set up in the Arctic Circle, funneling cold, wet weather away from the western U.S.

“The same story is pretty much true everywhere you look,” Day said. “There’s no getting around that this has been a severe drought across Wyoming.”

However, even this bleak outlook has a brighter perspective. Both Day and Rowe noted that spring precipitation wasn’t that bad when looking at communities with older records.

For instance, Lander got 3.25 of the 6.21 inches it typically receives between March 21 and June 20. That’s only 52% of their seasonal average, but it's only the 19th driest spring since 1891.

Casper had its 17th-driest spring since 1939, receiving 2.99 of its average 4.93 inches.

“This is ranking high on the list of driest winters for many places, but we’ve been down this road before,” Day said. “We’ve had some very dry years in the past, and people don't necessarily realize how prone we are to drought.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Prognosis Not Positive"}]

If the wettest months of Wyoming’s year were a bust, that doesn’t bode well for the hotter, drier summer ahead. Drought begets drought, as Day described it.

“It's really, really hard to erase or take big chunks out of drought as you get into early summer,” he said. “It’s already a dry climate, and the drier the ground gets, the harder it is to get rain. It takes a while for anything to bust that cycle.”

, most of Wyoming is experiencing Severe or Extreme drought. That’s actually an improvement from a few months ago, but isn’t saying much.

Rowe sees the possibility of drought relief on the horizon, but not for a few more months.

“There is the potential for the upcoming monsoonal season to be active, but it's not a certainty and won’t happen until late summer and early fall,” he said. “We would need a prolonged period of that moisture, with thunderstorms and rain showers developing every day for several weeks, for most of Wyoming to see any real improvements.”

 can change the game in a big way, in either direction. Unfortunately, that won’t have any impact in the short term.

“The Climate Prediction Center is calling for slightly above-average moisture for the next three months,” Rowe said. “That could give us more monsoonal moisture as we get into late July, August, and September, but it would take quite a lot to make a significant change.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Day was aware of that outlook, but “wouldn’t put any money on it.\""}]

“I’ve seen years where active tropical storms in the eastern Pacific Ocean during an El Niño summer drift into the Rockies and create some really wet weather in July, August and September,” he said. “I don't want to give any impression that it's coming or that this would end the drought conditions, but there’s a historical precedent for it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"It’s On Josh Allen"}]

Astronomical summer started with the summer solstice at 4:24 a.m. Sunday. Meteorological summer, however, started June 1.

Either way you look at it, it’s summer in Wyoming. That’s when people must be careful about what they wish for regarding moisture.

Even if there isn’t much precipitation over Wyoming, even a small amount can be enough to generate thunderstorms in the atmosphere. And with the thunder comes the lightning.

“If we're going to get rain, it's going to be likely coming from a thunderstorm,” Day said. “But thunderstorms could also cause lightning-induced fires. If you have wind coming in behind those storms, it’s a real concern.”

Day called summer thunderstorms “Catch 22s.” They’re the best chance for moisture but come with a higher risk of turning a drought-stricken landscape into an inferno.

“Do you want it to stay dry with no lightning, or do you want to take the chance to get wet and have lightning? I don’t have an answer for that, because thunderstorms are a blessing and a curse at the same time,” he said.

Now that summer’s here, the best course of action is to assume, and behave as if, the ongoing situation isn’t going to improve.

“Drought conditions are probably not going to improve much through the rest of June and into July,” Rowe said. “It'll really all depends on the monsoon as it develops later this summer. If it really sets up favorably for us, that would be very beneficial. We’ll have to see how that plays out.”

That said, there’s been a lot of active weather in Wyoming in the latter half of June. While the odds are low, Day said it's possible for June to make a noticeable dent in Wyoming’s drought.

“Getting that tropical storm activity in the Pacific and above-average precipitation in late July would be like 4th and 25 in a football game,” he said. “If you know we're going to go for it on fourth down, you have to hope Josh Allen’s our quarterback.”

Wamsutter Highway sign6 7 25

<title>Wyoming Records Driest Spring In Decades, Forecasters Expect Exceptionally Dry Summer | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Data from the National Weather Service reveals the last three months have been the driest spring on record for most of Wyoming. That's following one of the driest winters on record. And now meteorologists say they are expecting an exceptionally dry summer.

Wyoming Records Driest Spring In Decades, Forecasters Expect Exceptionally Dry Summer

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Energy

Black Hills Energy faces a future where individual data centers are proposing projects that demand power on the scale of a small state. 

Project Jade, as just one example, will come into Wyoming with a “bring-your-own-power” mentality for an initial 2.7 gigawatts of power, which is nearly three times what industry analysts have said Wyoming uses now. 

Ultimately, the data center could scale to a total of 10 gigawatts, which is almost as much power as Wyoming’s existing power plants could produce at peak capacity, based on Energy Information Administration data, which lists net summer power generation capacity for Wyoming at 10.8 gigawatts in 2024.

Project Jade’s developers have promised county officials a “bring-your-own-power” model, calling its campus “very self-sufficient,” and saying its approach will ensure there’s no pressure on the existing Laramie County power grid. 

But Black Hills Energy is also a partner on the project, officials have confirmed. So, even as a “self-powered” campus, the development is still, at some point, depending on Black Hills for infrastructure and interconnection. 

Project Jade is just one of several data centers looking to build within the Black Hills service territory, but the question for each of them is essentially the same, said Wes Ashton, Black Hills Energy’s vice president of utilities for Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cost-Causer Is Cost-Payer"}]

“Overall, the idea is to prevent any large loads or large customers from shifting any other cost to customers,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And typically, LPCS (large power contract service) tariffs these days, I think most people (equate) it to data centers. 

"That’s certainly the hot conversation and where a lot of the customer growth around the country is coming from.”

Customers coming into Black Hills' service territory are told up front about the large-load tariff and the company’s expectation that such customers will have to pay for any and all new infrastructure required to serve them.

That applies to their shares of the grid, as well as any other enhanced upgrade to transmission, or other sides of distribution. 

“Anything like that has to be covered there,” he said. “Or the simple way to say it is, and you may have heard before out of our company, the cost-causer is the cost-payer.”

The Black Hills large-load tariff was created more than a decade ago in response to Microsoft building a data center in Cheyenne, which became Black Hills’ first commercial, large-load customer. 

Under this system, large-load customers can expect a detailed analysis of their power requirements to happen in the early stages. 

In practice, that means the data center is expected to build or contract for its own dispatchable, onsite power, which will ultimately be integrated into the wider grid. 

“It’s a highly regulated process,” he said. “The requests that come in are negotiated out and there’s a number of different agreements that take place. Those requests and those load studies are evaluated … and all load requirements — generation, transmission system impacts — are studied in detail.”

Once the detailed system analysis is completed, a plan is then developed for serving the project’s power, which will be filed with and overseen by state regulators who evaluate the plan on whether it adequately protects existing ratepayers.

Ashton argues that this approach allows the utility to welcome extremely large data-center loads while isolating the financial risk to those customers themselves, rather than spreading it across households and small businesses.

“That is a process that takes place over a number of months, if not years, to get that set up,” Ashton said. “The core principle is that the tariff keeps away or isolates any risk on behalf of the utility, and it isolates it to that customer, so that customer makes their payments for the investment, and that customer would make their payments to be integrated onto a system. 

"And then that tariff allows, through those individual negotiations, either generation that’s behind the meter, purchasing power over the open market.”

Few Rate Hikes Despite Dozen Data Centers

Black Hills already serves about 12 total data center sites across roughly eight customers, Ashton said. 

Meanwhile, in the last decade it’s only had one rate increase request, according to a statement by Black Hills representative Austin Allen during a recent Cheyenne forum about data centers.

Here, company executives are referring to base-rate cases. Separate fuel and power-cost adjustments are handled through other mechanisms on a customer’s bills.

It’s a track record that has the company confident that its large-load tariff is working as intended, and keeping the costs of scaling up power for such customers from affecting ordinary ratepayers in an undue manner. 

“We’ve probably got another maybe a dozen or so entities that we’re in various stages of conversations or negotiations with,” Ashton said. “There are always conversations and customers at various levels of maturity. 

"Some are introductory conversations, some are actively trying to work a project, and some are developers.”

So far, nothing has suggested that the company’s large-load tariff won’t be scalable to gigawatt territory. 

In fact, Ashton said the infrastructure that these companies have built out has ripple effects that have so far been positive for consumers, improving grid reliability and efficiency for everyone.

“They help by essentially funding the system enhancements that we have, and ultimately those benefits extend to all of our customers,” Ashton said, adding that new value also comes along as many of those customers continue to invest in infrastructure. 

“That system investment not only provides greater reliability to our network, but it also has benefits to all of our customers,” he said. “And that’s why year-in, year-out, our Cheyenne system is one of the best — if not the absolute best — in reliability in the country. It’s always in the top one or two for reliability, because we continually invest in that system.”

The Edison Electric Institute is the body that publishes the ratings, which includes an annual study of interruption minutes. According to that body, Black Hills Energy’s electric utility in Cheyenne has been in the top quartile for reliability for the past 10 years running.

EEI data by the company consistently show outage minutes that land in top tier utilities, a point Black Hills frequently touts when marketing its system to data centers. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could Bills Go Down?"}]

Public concern about the power use of data centers has settled around the simple question of whether their power needs will show up on everyone else’s bill, but Ashton believes it’s actually the opposite way around. 

Because of the data center improvements, rate increases have been slower than they might have been, which is to the regular ratepayers’ advantage.

Ashton doesn’t have a specific figure to encapsulate that, but said “rates have held steady as a result.”

The LPCS tariff has frequently been touted by state regulators, consumer advocates, and even Wyoming legislators as effective. So far, however, no large customers have scaled back or left, so that’s a scenario that has yet to be tested.

“I like to say that as we continue to experience growth on that system, or our system, that has been a good thing for customers, in addition to tax base and jobs,” he said. “We have been very involved in support for being a long-term partner to growing Wyoming’s economy by bringing value to the table, by bringing expertise, and to be a trusted partner for the communities we serve by providing safe, reliable, cost-effective energy.”

As the scale jumps from megawatt to gigawatt, Ashton said Black Hills continues to believe their tariff written for large loads a decade ago is still the right tool. 

Whether that promise holds true as Project Jade and other massive data center projects move from concept to construction will help determine how much of the AI boom Wyoming can absorb — and at what utility cost to people already living on the high plains.

Substation and transmission near Project Jade 6 22 26

<title>How Black Hills Energy Is Preparing For Surge Of Power-Hungry Wyoming Data Centers | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Black Hills Energy says it’s ready for a surge of power-hungry Wyoming data centers that can each use as much electricity as a small state. The bottom line is making those projects pay their own way, said a company official. 

How Black Hills Energy Is Preparing For Surge Of Power-Hungry Wyoming Data Centers

Wyoming Life

Terlingua is a ghost town in Texas where the world’s chili champions are made. But many of those Terlingua International Chili champions say their favorite chili stage isn’t in the Texas desert at all. 

It’s in the tiny town of Chugwater, population 175, where even the best of the best are willing to drive a thousand miles or more on a chili pilgrimage that’s been going strong for decades, raising money for local nonprofits and quietly serving as one of Wyoming’s biggest, word-of-mouth tourism wins. 

Many contestants pair their chili fest trip with subsequent Yellowstone and Devils Tower adventures.

This Father’s Day weekend marked the 40th annual Chugwater Chili Cook-off, which annually turns the tiny high plains town into a blow-out chili fest for a single day. 

Other chili competitions “just don’t have the audience participation like you do here, where everyone comes and tastes your chili,” 2015 Terlingua winner James Burns told Cowboy State Daily. “This is one of the few where that happens and it’s just amazing. 

They’ve set themselves apart from all the other chili championships.”

It was a 15-hour drive for Burns, one that he made over two days. Burns’ first Chugwater Chili Cook-off was in 2016, fresh off his 2015 Terlingua win. 

No one, he added, was ever a less-likely chili champion.

“At the time, I had this band,” he said with a chuckle. “And the lady who promoted us and did our shirts and everything said, ‘I’ve got a chili cook-off coming up with the VFW, and I want you to cook for it'.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Started Online"}]

Burns told her he had no idea how to cook chili for dinner, much less for a competition. However, she insisted, and he needed her to keep doing the band’s marketing.

“So, I went out and I bought all this stuff,” Burns said. “And it was all the wrong stuff. I bought, like, a cast-iron pan, which you don’t need.”

He quickly realized he was in way over his head when it came to chili competitions. Eventually, he asked her if a website or something could help guide him. 

“So that’s how I got started,” he said. “I went to that website and found out what to really use.”

Even then, he still faced a steep learning curve. From March to June, he cooked at all kinds of chili contests and never scored a single point. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Finally, it all just came together. "}]

“The first point I got, I went straight to first place,” he said.

That took him to Terlingua, which he also won. He has been winning chili competitions ever since. 

This year, a decade after his first Chugwater Chili experience, he was back. Not for himself, however. He had chili champion friends who had yet to experience the tiny town’s event.

“I tell everyone you’ve got to go here,” he said. “It’s just so amazing. It’s a bucket-list item. All the chili cooks have got this on their bucket list. 

“Things happen, they can’t get here all the time,” he added. “But this year, we’ve got between 20 and 25 people who came up here from Texas.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Big Chili Explosion"}]

Burns isn’t exaggerating when it comes to the scale of Chugwater’s giant-sized Chili Cook-off in Staat’s Park. 

The town might be tiny, but its cook-off explodes its population from 175 to thousands for a single day, raising money that helps support many of the town’s nonprofits all year. The event has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support its fire department, historical group, economic development and school organizations such as FFA and FBLA.

Cars will line the streets leading into Chugwater and fill up all the side streets. Business parking lots quickly swell with cars, too, as well as dusty fields where no one would normally park.

The C.H. Brown family donates time and teams for free wagon rides to and from the cook-off, lending a little charm to what would otherwise be a lengthy trek on foot from these repurposed fields to the park where contestants from all over the world gather to vie for one of three top spots in the red chili competition. That is not just for bragging rights. It’s also an automatic invitation to Terlingua.

“The public here is just phenomenal,” 2019 Terlingua winner Kathryn Williams of Texas told Cowboy State Daily. “If you look at the population sign of Chugwater, it says 175, but in the first 33 minutes, we had given away 200 tasting cups of chili, so there’s obviously more than just the population of Chugwater here. The support is just unbelievable.”

Williams paired her first trip to Chugwater with a tour of Yellowstone once the competition is over, after which she’ll be in Colorado for a competition as well. She planned everything a year in advance. 

“If you’re from the Gulf Coast of Texas and you’re not used to the cold, and you’ve never seen a mountain, you’ve never seen snow — this was just an opportunity for us to come see a different landscape,” she said. “It’s also a chance to meet different people and see if Texas-style chili works in Wyoming.”

She’s not alone. Many other visiting teams also told Cowboy State Daily they pair this weekend with a larger Western road trip that will include other bucket-list stops such as Yellowstone, Devil’s Tower, Deadwood, and many other places.

For veteran competitor Jerry Arnold, who lives in Nebraska but is originally from Torrington, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off is much more than just a cooking competition. For him, it is a big family group hug, built around chili pots and pans. 

Arnold's wife, daughter-in-law, son, daughter and her children have all joined the chili fold. They come together over chili contests like other families gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Arnold won his first chili contest in 1999. 

“They had a pokerfest,” he recalled. “I and my wife went over there — I wasn’t married yet — but I won, which really surprised me. I thought, ‘Wow!’ And so I went to Crawford (Nebraska) and won again. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m gonna go to Scotts Bluff and win, I’m gonna go to the nationals and I’ll be famous'.”

Arnold has been invited to Terlingua a half-dozen times or so with his family members, who cook under the name Prairie Fire Chili. So far, they have not clinched a world title, though they have frequently placed in regional qualifiers, including the Chugwater Cook-off.

“There’s a lot of competition here,” Arnold said. “If you place in the top 10 here, you’re doing really well. My daughter-in-law, she got second in green.”

Arnold’s only complaint about Chugwater is that he never gets a chance to try the other competitors’ chili. He’s frequently next to a guy who has won Chugwater multiple times and has always “wanted to go over there and try his chili,” but he’s always too busy serving his own.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cooking For The Crowd"}]

While some of the contestants are laser-focused on winning their shot at Terlingua, others come to win the crowd.

Count Cheyenne construction worker Casey Medina among those. He’s earned the People’s Choice honor multiple times, and he, too, sees the event as a big family tradition. 

His recipe is built around pork and Anaheim chilis, slow-cooked with onions, garlic and tomatoes. His secret weapon is just letting all the natural flavors shine through. 

“No secret seasonings,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “No added ingredients really.” 

Just a little salt to help bring it all together.

The recipe might seem modest, but the quantities of the natural ingredients are anything but. Medina estimates he cooks 35 gallons of chili in his quest to win the People’s Choice award, and he will start a week in advance, cutting the meat, roasting peppers, and getting all the prep work done. 

The final cook takes an additional three hours on site. 

It’s a big effort for one weekend, but it’s worth it for this crowd, he said, waving a hand at all the people milling about, enthusiastically trying the different chili recipes.

“This is just a good time as a family,” Medina added. “It’s just something to show off that we do have a good recipe. It’s something to do, and it’s a great event. I wish more people would come up.”

For Cheyenne caterer Amy Kennison, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off was meant to be a one-off competition in 2024, a way to get out and meet new people and promote her Wyoming catering business. 

June, typically, is abusy month for her, as it’s wedding season. But, as it happened, in 2024, her schedule was a bit light. She’d heard of the Chugwater Chili Cook-off for decades, but had just never had the opportunity before then to enter it.

“We never had any thought that we were going to actually win,” she said. “We were just hoping to maybe place, and thought it would be fun.”

In fact, they were pretty sure they weren’t going to win — given the kind of competition that was at the event, which included many of the world’s top chili champions.

As the winners were announced, name after name rolled out belonging to other teams. Kennison and her family were actually packing up to leave when they suddenly heard their name called. Their chili, made from Wyoming-grown beef, pork and deer they raise and hunt themselves, had won first place in the red chili category.

That meant an automatic invite to Terlingua, which they decided to do as a family. 

It was an “interesting” experience, Kennison said — and not one she wants to repeat.

“This cook-off is way better,” she said of Chugwater’s festival. “At Terlingua, people don’t come to your booth to sample your chili like they do here.

“And the tasting was at noon,” she added. “But they opened the beer garden at 8 a.m., so everyone couldn’t walk or talk by 10 a.m.”

The excessive drinking by some contestants and other guests created a decidedly non-family-like atmosphere, which Kennison and her family didn’t embrace. 

“It was very weird,” she said. “You just came, and everyone made a little pot of chili like this in their trailer and filled a cup and delivered it up to the judges. That was it.

“It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t kid-friendly at all, and I don’t think we’ll ever go back. It was also kind of vulgar — like Burning Man for chili.”

Terlingua might be the sport’s most prestigious title, but for Kennison and many other competitors, Chugwater offers something they value even more — a family-friendly place where their kids feel welcome and a tiny town turns into a chili mecca.

For first-time Chugwater Chili Cook-off guest Kimberly Doshier, who grew up near Sacramento, California, and now lives in Cheyenne, Chugwater felt a lot bigger than she expected for a town of 175.

She’d figured it would be something pretty scaled back. Until, that is, she drove into the car-lined streets and found herself at what felt like a “really big farmers market” with tent after tent of cooks and vendors, live music, and families lining up to taste.

“Being from California originally, I’m kind of used to a giant farmers market,” she said. “So this kind of reminds me of that a little bit.”

Her nose had been “going crazy” since she’d arrived, overwhelmed by the mix of spices, smoke, and grilled foods that were scenting the air. 

“The word ‘disappointment’ does not come to mind when it comes to this event,” she said with a big smile. “It’s been a blast. This is definitely what a community coming together really is.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Father’s Day Plan"}]

Forty years ago, it might have been difficult to imagine that a chili cook-off in a tiny Wyoming town would become a pilgrimage for Terlingua world champions, with caravans of Texans, Floridans, Nebraskans, and others planning their entire Father’s Day weekend around it. 

But that’s exactly what the Chugwater event has become. Gallons and gallons of chili flow throughout the day from huge over-sized pots into tiny sample cups that are then tasted by tongues tingling with all the chili flavor they can stand. 

For Burns and other Terlingua champions or hopefuls who have made this trek, Chugwater’s event is counted among the best of the best for its fun and its atmosphere.

And it’s given Wyoming families a chance to try the world’s best chilis in one special location on one special day each year — a Wyoming Father’s Day to remember. 

Chugwater chili 20260620 142313 6 22 26

<title>Why World Chili Champions Come To Tiny Chugwater For Its Annual Chili Fest | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Terlingua, Texas, crowns the world’s chili champions, but many say their favorite contest is in Chugwater, Wyoming. For 40 years, the Chugwater Chili Cook-off has been a Father's Day bucket-list contest for the best chili cooks on the planet.

Why World Chili Champions Come To Tiny Chugwater For Its Annual Chili Fest

Outdoors

Public Lands

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

One More For The Road: Thursday, January 15, 2026

In case you missed it

More in One More For The Road

One More For The Road: Tuesday, June 23, 2026

One More For The Road: Monday, June 22, 2026

One More For The Road: Sunday, June 21, 2026

One More For The Road: Saturday, June 20, 2026

Most read