Beekeeper Who Corrals Swarm At MLB Game Is All The Buzz For What Happens Next

PHOENIX — A swarm of bees created quite a baseball buzzkill in the desert — and gave Arizona Diamondbacks fans a new hero.

The start of Tuesday night’s game between the Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers was delayed nearly two hours after a bee colony swarmed the top of the protective netting behind home plate.

Matt Hilton turned into the star of the night for removing the bees, earning a brief slice of stardom and the nod to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

“Minor leagues to the big leagues now,” said Hilton, branch manager for Blue Sky Pest Control’s Phoenix office. “It’s pretty cool.”

The buzz started about five minutes before first pitch.

Mike Rock, the Diamondbacks vice president of baseball operations, got a call from the senior manager of events telling him a growing colony of bees was collecting atop the netting.

“She doesn’t usually call me about that time. I knew something was odd,” Rock said. “She said we have bees landing on the net right behind home plate. I said, How many? And she said, hundreds — no way, thousands. And I knew we had a problem.”

Bee swarms are common during the spring in Arizona and have caused numerous spring training delays through the years. A bee swarm also caused a lengthy delay in a match between Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, last month.

Chase Field has a retractable roof, but it was open for Tuesday’s game, so the bees had free reign.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts met with the umpires shortly after the delay began and the public address announcer told the crowd about the delay.

Rock and his team had already put the bee-removal wheels in motion.

Hilton was at his son Levi’s final