Travellers on a Tennessee highway were forced to brake for workers - and drones, perhaps even a queen - when a truck carrying about a million bees crashed.

The swarm shut down an exit of Interstate 40 in Knoxville, said a regional spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Transportation. There were no injuries.

"The ramp from I-40 East to Henley Street is back open but the truck is destroyed and the bees are … well… buzzing," Mark Nagi posted, along with a photo of a person in beekeeper garb.

"Unless you are dressed in this outfit please stay in your vehicles in this area."

Nagi later confirmed all the bees had been moved from the area and the truck was removed.

What could not be as easily quelled were the puns.

"So, this is the buzz around town?" US Representative Tim Burchett wrote on social media. "This stuff just writes itself."

The Virginia Department of Transportation commiserated on social media. Its northern division reminisced about a 2018 crash that similarly released a swarm of bees on Interstate 495, prompting the advice, "Please roll up your windows".