It was quieter than usual in parts of Dorchester County, South Carolina on Monday. Silence had replaced the familiar buzz as millions of the usual noisemakers lay silent on the ground — dead.

It was an unanticipated massacre, collateral damage in the war against the Zika virus.

County officials had been targeting mosquitos when they blanketed a 15-square mile area with pesticide on Sunday. But they ended up killing at least 2.5 million honeybees as well.

“It was like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness,” wrote one woman who walked through an affected apiary on Monday.

More than 40 travel-related cases of Zika have been reported in South Carolina, including four cases in Dorchester County. Concerned about the potential spread of the disease, county officials launched aerial mosquito spraying operations over the weekend, a first for the county, which typically sprays pesticides from the ground using trucks.

Officials used the insecticide naled. Though commonly employed for mosquito control, naled is known to be toxic to honeybees and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, can pose some risk to aquatic and terrestrial wildlife.

To protect honeybees, the EPA suggests spraying naled between dusk and dawn “while bees are not typically foraging.” But in Dorchester County, the spraying was conducted between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. County officials said they followed manufacturer instructions, which had recommended application “no more than two hours after sunrise” to minimize hazard to bees.

The morning after the spraying, beekeepers in the area were stunned to discover the deadly impacts of the chemical.

“There was no need for a bee suit Monday morning to go down http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/south-carolina-honeybees-zika_us_57c91f92e4b0e60d31dea238?