A truck carrying a million commercial pollinating bees crashed Thursday night in Auburn, police said. The crash combined with the rainy conditions hurt the bees beyond salvaging, likely requiring them to be euthanized.

The big rig was carrying hundreds of beehives when it crashed at the intersection of Nevada and Andrews streets near Highway 80 in Auburn, according to the Auburn Police Department.

The driver of the truck, who suffered only minor injuries, was trying to avoid an accident when traffic slowed abruptly in front of him due to congestion on Highway 80, according to Sgt. Tucker Huey of the Auburn Police Department.

"They took the offramp at a higher rate of speed than was safe for that offramp to avoid striking any vehicles, then lost control of the vehicle and ran into a dirt embankment," said Huey.

"The bees were saturated with soapy water, which puts them in a dormant state, and transported," he added. "No one thought they were really salvageable."

Beekeeper Nathan Smith told local TV station Fox 40 the bees were being transported from Montana to the Central Valley to pollinate almond trees, and that they needed to be euthanized because of the coming rain. He estimated the value of the truckload of bees to be at least $1 million.

More than a million colonies of bees are transported to the Central Valley each year to help pollinate the almond trees, and the orchards swarm with 31 billion bees, Scientific American estimated in 2013.

Under different conditions, the incident in Auburn could have been far more dangerous to deal with, because the bees would have been more active, police said. As it was, a few people came away with minor stings, but more serious injuries were avoided, according to Huey.

"We lucked out. It was a cooler evening, and obviously during the nighttime hours," Huey said. "On a bright, sunny day, it would have been bad."

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter.