The sport suffered a significant setback in 1915, when the entire US beelining team was lost at sea.  They had brought a hive aboard the Lusitania with them for practice during their journey from  New York to Liverpool for the  British Beelining Open, and one or more bees from the hive apparently stung the deck gun crew of a German  U-Boat that had surfaced nearby.  The Germans retaliated with torpedoes, the Lusitania was sunk, and the US was drawn into World War I.