Item #: SCP-XXXX (Formerly AO-S93/1974-9f-a6)
Object Class: Safe Euclid
Threat Level: Red
Special Containment Procedures: As of 7/15/20██, SCP-XXXX is contained in a hermetically sealed storage Bay 17 of the Artifact Vault at Site 93. SCP-XXXX is to be checked on weekly for any damage or corrosion, and calibration for the humidity and movement sensors are to be checked monthly.
SCP-XXXX may not be removed from Bay 17 without Site Director clearance or above. By order of the 05 council, testing is prohibited until further notice.
Instances of SCP-XXXX-A that generate in Bay 17 are to be captured for testing. If sufficient quantities of SCP-XXXX-A generate at once, Bay 17 extractor fans can be funneled directly into the site incinerator to prevent containment breach or injury to the staff. This process has been discontinued per Addendum XXXX-3
Individuals with allergies to bee stings are not to be assigned to projects relating to SCP-XXXX.
Description: SCP-XXXX is a standard 55-gallon (208 litre) steel drum, similar to those commonly manufactured and used in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The drum was originally painted a cobalt blue, and later had the words "LIVE BEES" added via a stencil and spray paint in a bright yellow. The object shows standard corrosion and wear for a drum that was in regular usage. The drum is sealed with a standard lid, using a gasket and pressure ring. After the events of 7/15/20██, SCP-XXXX now has a rough welded seam along the vertical axis of the drum from where it was split during Addendum XXXX-2.
The drum does not display any anomalous properties as long as it remains closed and properly sealed. Once opened, the drum produces live bees at a rate averaging 10 bees per minute initially, increasing at an exponential rate until it reaches [REDACTED]. The bees exiting SCP-XXXX are classified as instances of SCP-XXXX-A.
SCP-XXXX-A take the form of non-anomalous apiformes commonly found in nature. Testing on instances of SCP-XXXX-A collected so far has revealed them to be a representative sampling of both domesticated and wild bee populations, with no physiological or genetic differences presenting. Over 98% of SCP-XXXX-A are "generally healthy and in good spirits" upon exiting SCP-XXXX and behave with the same level of hostility expected from common apiformes.
Addendum XXXX-1: SCP-XXXX was recovered by Foundation Agents in April of 1974 following the string of tornadoes that struck █████, Ohio and surrounding areas.
While investigating other incidents in the area, MTF groups mobilized from nearby Sites ██ and ██ were alerted to reports of unusual insect activity in the area. [REDACTED] initially suspected that SCP-████ may have been involved, however after two days of tracking patterns and swarm behavior, they were able to trace the source of the insects to SCP-XXXX, which was found partially submerged in a creekbed and covered in debris. Upon removing the blockages, SCP-XXXX began steadily generating further instances of SCP-XXXX-A until the lid was located and secured in place.
Once the object appeared to be 'neutralized' in the field, it was sent to Site 93 along with several hundred other Anomalous Objects to be further researched pending full SCP classification and storage.
** Excerpt from a 2006 interview with Dr. Estaban Garro, who was the Assistant Director of Site 93 in the 1970s. Dr Garro (now deceased) was at a E-Class Foundation-run retirement center at the time of this interview.
Dr. Garro: -always happy to assist the Foundation, Agent. How can I help?
Agent Vaughn: There was an incident at Site 93. One of the pre-classified objects from the 70s. There isn't much documentation about it, so we're looking for anyone who was around back then.
Dr. Garro: I was always afraid one of those was going to bite us on our collective asses. That whole deal was a mess. My site… Site 93 was never set up to handle skips, you see, we were document processing and long term storage for the Foundation. You'd be amazed how much paperwork a clandestine organization generates, and it was our job back in the day to make sure it all goes to the right place. Copy the things that need copying, burn the things that need burning. The closest we ever came to 'action' was when they were testing out the Scranton Reality Anchors, because it occurred to one of the high-ups that [SEVERAL MINUTES OF EXTRANEOUS DIALOG REMOVED]
Agent Vaughn: So if 93 wasn't supposed to handle SCP containment, how did all these objects wind up in your warehouses?
Dr. Garro: That would be the tornadoes of '74. Leveled a couple of nearby towns, kicked up a bunch of weird dust. The 05 approved using 93 as a 'temporary' staging ground for the agents and MTFs on assignment as they helped with the cleanup, and they converted one of our warehouses to a processing center for the items that were incoming. And there were a LOT of items incoming, let me tell you, sonny. Truckloads.
Agent Vaughn: And were all of them new SCPs?
Dr. Garro: (laughs) Heck, kid, most of them weren't even anomalous. The people out in the field were sifting through rubble, getting jumpy, making mistakes… it happens even in the best of situations. It was triage. And it's better to send a weird looking wobbly thing that moves occasionally back to base where they can watch it for two days before they realize it's just a broken sex toy than it is to leave an actual SCP sitting in a field waiting for some kid to pick it up. So they shipped rubble back to us and we went through it, looking to see if it was either anomalous or dangerous… or both.
Agent Vaughn: Ok, then… were any of them SCPs?
Dr. Garro: We had a few candidates, stuff the researchers got excited about, but all of that stuff got shipped back to 19 or one of the other better equipped locations. I think ███ and ████ both originated with things initially identified at Site 93.
Agent Vaughn: But what about the stuff you kept? The Anomalous Object numbers?
Dr. Garro: That was to help us sort through all the stuff that fell between "normal" and "SCP". You know, like… a belt buckle that causes whoever is wearing it to do a perfect impression of former president LBJ. That doesn't really need to be secured, contained, or protected, ya know… but you also don't want it getting out into the world, because then there would be questions. And so, once the fuss quieted down and they stopped bringing in a couple hundred new things each day, most of the researchers and agents went back to their exciting positions having their faces ripped off and staring at murder statues.
Agent Vaughn: It says here that Site 93 is still doing intake and research, and it looks like it now has a Safe containment facility.
Dr. Garro: They were talking about it before I retired. They had left a handful of researchers behind to continue to plow through the few thousand items that had come in, and I guess once we were on the Foundation radar proper it was only a matter of time.
Addendum XXXX-2: On 7/15/20██, the full anomalous nature of SCP-XXXX revealed itself during the yearly "Operation Clean Sweep", a site-wide push to sort through the thousands of unclassified and under-classified anomalous objects stored at Site 93. Full details of the events are need to know and available only with Clearance XXXX/4 or with Site Director Approval
Prior to 7/15/20██, SCP-XXXX, formerly internally designated as Anomalous Object AO-S93/1974-9f-a6, was stored with multiple other pre-classification items in Medium-Sized Object Storage Bay 7. Logs from the day indicate that the Researcher S█████ and the two D-Class assigned to assist him opened the barrel, confirmed that it still contained living bees after over 30 years, and noted that it should be shipped to a properly equipped Foundation location to investigate further as a possible SCP, or at least an exploitable Foundation asset.
Storage bays at Site 93 had previously been used for document storage and were constructed of basic steel-reinforced concrete. The interior was climate-controlled and airtight, but did not feature any form of direct surveillance of the inside once the doors were sealed. Because of these factors, there was no direct observation of the events that transpired after the inspection was concluded.
On 7/21/20██, the Clean Sweep team, on their way to an adjacent storage bay, discovered that the steel door sealing Storage Bay 93 was "warm to the touch" and "possibly buzzing". Site Director Sierra was immediately notified and the Anomalous Object wing of the facility was placed in lockdown pending an incoming MTF to assist in containment.
19 minutes after discovery, prior to the arrival of the MTF team, the door to Storage Bay 7 breached, exploding outward and embedding itself in the obverse wall. Despite having the initial area cleared, the resulting wave of pressure and temperature changes, as well as the cascading release of bees (both alive and dead) resulted in the death of ██ D-Class personnel and █ facility staff, including Site Director Sierra, who was on the way to personally inspect the situation.
Due to the lack of a site director and resources, Site ██ assisted in the post-mortem of the incident, with their full report filed to the O5 Council on 8/28/██. Their conclusion following additional research into the nature and function of SCP-XXXX was that the object continues to manifest bees as long as the lid is not in place and the gasket is not sealed completely.
Following the Clean Sweep inspection on 7/21/20██, the lid was firmly secured in place, but the gasket did not seal correctly. The resulting continued activation of its properties, combined with the limited amount of space inside the object, resulted in an ever-increasing number of bees manifesting inside the body of SCP-XXXX until it structurally could no longer contain the pressure, at which time the side wall ruptured.
This rupture appears to have counted towards the total diameter of the 'opening', triggering a massive spike in the number of bees being produced inside the object. Due to the air-tight nature of the room and the constant addition of bee mass, as well as the heat being generated by the live bees, the containment cell underwent a complete structural failure and resultant breach ██ minutes after bee production had began.
Emergency responder crews located the damaged object in the wreckage and, in an attempt to negate the anomalous properties, sprayed it down with a mix of water and ████████. This was reportedly at least partially successful, giving welders time to repair the damage to the side wall. The original lid was not salvageable, however a replacement lid was sourced from within the facility and affixed, restoring the object to its inert state.
From: Temporary Site 93 Director Dr. Alan Patridge
To: 05 Council, Site 19 Director, Site 66 Director
Date: June 19, 2014
Subject: Re: SCP-XXXX After Action Report
All,
I regret to inform you that the new lids and gaskets provided by Site 19 continue to fail at an increasing rate. The initial ones we got right after the incident lasted almost a year, but this last batch degraded after a few months in place. I don't know if it's because the lid and seal that were originally with it were part of the object and these are just mundane, or if it's the damage to the side wall. Either way, bees are still coming out of this damn thing at random and we don't appear to be able to stop it.
Pending your final approval, all further testing on SCP-XXXX has been suspended indefinitely. The more data that our people pull up, the more I am convinced that SCP-XXXX did far more damage than we originally imagined. Originally, back in the 1970s, they theorized that it was creating bees from 'thin air', and that's the assumption we were working on until recently. However, it's starting to look more and more like it does not create new bees, it simply moves bees from all over the world to inside the object whenever you open it. While we've never been able to prove it, the containment breach back in 2005 times almost exactly to the beginning of the 'Colony Collapse Disorder' that has been reported globally, with the continued loss of bee population globally mapping at a statistically significant rate to the subsequent activation events when the replacement gaskets have failed and our various attempts to repair and re-secure the object.
Unless we can find some way to neutralize the object - safely, and without killing all the remaining bees in the world - I do not see an end to this, and would welcome any feedback or direction on how we might go about putting the lid back on this genie bottle once and for all.
-AP
Addendum XXXX-3: Due to recent concerns about worldwide bee populations, increased effort is being placed in attempting to preserve and rehome instances of XXXX-A that manifest. This poses many logistical problems, as bees are social, communal, and territorial creatures that do not survive for any significant amount of time outside of a hive environment. Foundation representatives have been in contact with Wilson's Wildlife Solutions to develop more permanent beekeeping alternatives.
Per 
