Bees sting Hereford man 250 times
June 5, 2007 09:44 PM
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6616950&nav=HMO6

A Southern Arizona man survives being attacked by hundreds of bees. Thom Housley, 65, was attacked in his neighbor's yard Saturday in Hereford.

Housley says, "I was beating them with my hat and they were mostly on my head and hands and then some down my back."

Housley says doctors pulled 250 stingers out of him. Africanized bee stingers.

He says, "I was in dire trouble."

Housley was driving his tractor and mowing his neighbor's yard when he thought he drove into a swarm of moths, then realized they were bees.

Terrified, he jumped off the moving tractor. Since he was a boy he was told he was deathly allergic to bees.

Housley says, "I was thinking I was going to die, because pretty soon I'm not going to be able to breathe."

Neighbor Tommy Cosby helped Housley into his home, then called paramedics. Cosby, who also got stung, says, "I knew he was hurt from the way he was hollering."

After the attack, Reed Booth, who calls his business "The Killer Bee Guy," removed the bees.

Booth says, "I am personally surprised that no one died." He says, "It was insane. It turned out that there were two large hives underneath this trailer."

Booth says, "These two hives combined had over a quarter of a million bees in it. It only takes 500 stings to equal a rattlesnake bite."

Booth figures the bees had been there a long time. Why did Housley's tractor set them off?

Booth says, "They hate whirring sounds, motors and engines."

He says, "All of the bee hives in Arizona now are Africanized. They're all bombs waiting to go off."

Housley says from now on doctors have told him to carry a vial of drugs with him everywhere he goes in case he gets stung again.

He says, "You pull the top off and jab it into your leg."

Housley believes his story has there's a lesson for all of us. He says, "just respect them bees."

Aggressive bees take over Texas street
WACO, Texas, May 24 (UPI) -- Police blocked off an area of Waco, Texas, after rampaging bees took over the neighborhood, stung about a dozen people and killed two dogs.
A teenage girl was hospitalized after being stung more than 20 times by the swarming insects and at least 10 other people were stung , most of them repeatedly, The Waco Tribune-Herald reported Thursday.

The bees killed two dogs and caused two other to be sent to veterinary hospitals with more than 500 stings each, the newspaper said.

The bees were set off in an aggressive rampage when beekeeping hobbyist Jim Bartley attempted to remove a hive from the property of the Rev. C.J. Oliver. Bartley said the bees became unusually aggressive and began to attack, stinging him several times despite his protective gear, the newspaper said.

"I've worked with bees for 35, 40 years, and I've never worked with bees that were more aggressive than those," he told the Tribune-Herald.

He said the bees took over an area extending two blocks from their colony.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2007/05/24/aggressive_bees_take_over_texas_street/3517/#post

Hey, I was just googling swarms of bees in Miami, and came upon your website!

Yesterday I was driving in my convertible in Miami. Just as I entered 878 from US 1, I saw what looked like little pebbles in the air, like the kind of debris you see fall off of a truck. There were no trucks or cars around me! I got closer and crashed into the black cloud! I ducked as it hit my windshield, it was struck with such a force! When I looked up I saw there were around 80 (I counted) clear smears on the windshield. Upon closer inspection I saw a bunch of bees stuck under the windshield wipers!

When I got home I found more stuck in the trim and trapped under the wire to my satellite radio. I pulled off four and put them in a bag, incase anyone wanted to see them. The front of my car had another 50 or so bee bodies and spots on it!

Just curious if you've heard of anything like this!?

Okay, perhaps I'll hear from you later!

Thanks for reading!

WillieTheBeeMan wrote back"You missed between 3000 - 5000 bees swarming!!!! which way were they going ?

They were flying south on 878 , but on the on ramp, so they were "going the wrong way" if they were in a car!

They were heading towards US 1. And I drove right into it! It hit the window with such a force, and the swarm was so big, I thought that the windshield would break. But the bees just broke! I was afraid to look in the back seat, incase there were any in there. But when I got home, there were none in the backseat.

I removed two smushed bodies, and two intact bodies. There are still some in the trim, that I have to work at removing, with a toothpick. I have the four bodies in a plastic bag!

I cleaned everything off the window, but the hood of the car still has some stuff on it (because of water restrictions I couldn't clean it.) But this morning I saw a bee by the hood of my car. Do you think he's smelling the other bees? Maybe I should risk a ticket and wash my car?!

Why we KILL BEES

Updated: May 25, 2007 8:14pm
Some aggressive bees in Waco that killed three dogs and sent a woman to the hospital this week have now been exterminated.
Exterminator Craig Lehrmann sprayed the hive early Friday morning.
Earlier this week a resident at 23rd and Morrow Avenue called a beekeeper to remove a beehive at his house.
However, the bees got aggravated and started attacking.
Lehrmann said aggressive bees have been a big problem this year.
"It's kind of weird because you hear in the news that honey bees are disappearing and not having many of them, but I cn tell you this, my company, we have done five times as many bee jobs this year as I have done in the last five years combined.
It seems like they're getting more and more aggressive. I don't know without dissecting it if it is a killer bee, but at the very least we have seen the most aggressive I have ever seen and the highest number of them have been this spring so far," Lehrmann said.
Homeowner C.J. Oliver sent a bag of dead bees to Texas A&M for testing.

Single Bee Sends Gathering Of Humans Into Helpless Panic
June 16, 2007 | Issue 43•24




DALLAS—A western honeybee measuring barely one-quarter of an inch in length and weighing approximately .03 ounces triggered panic among a gathering of six fully-grown Homo sapiens during a picnic at Davis Park on Monday, witnesses reported.

"Where is it—where is it?" said 44-year-old general manager Charles Freid, who has been described by his coworkers and bsiness rivals as "ruthless," after the bee happened to fly in his general direction. "Get it off me! Is it on me?"
Dallas' Davis Park on Monday afternoon, still abandoned hours after the bee enounter. Inset: the bee.
"Jesus!" added Freid, screaming and flailing his arms as he raced to his car, got inside, and locked the doors.
The college-educated humans, all of whom are not allergic to bee-sting venom and possess both cerebral and muscular capacities several orders of magnitude beyond that of the insect, proceeded to retreat in abject fright from its half-millimeter stinger, which, when used, causes a twinge of discomfort followed by mild irritation and kills the bee.

According to entomologists at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Apis mellifera was most likely trying to pollinate a nearby cluster of dandelions and was not, as alleged by 50-year-old attorney Georgia Sakko, who has twice endured the pain of childbirth and successfully battled breast cancer, "out to get us."
"Don't make it angry—don't make it angry!" Sakko said. "Is it in my hair? I feel something in my hair. Somebody get it out. Get it out!"
Airline pilot Mike Grunwold, 49, who is approximately 1,224 times the size of the bee, said that he was "certain" the bee had landed on Sakko's back. Fiber tests on Sakko's clothing later found no traces of a bee's presence, but did reveal a small piece of lint and matted hair that may have resembled an insect at a distance and in certain lights.
Civil engineer, marathon runner, and Gulf War veteran Scott Fogel, 39, briefly attempted to use force against the bee's non-aggressive actions, waving it away with a paper plate. After accidently upending a container of potato salad, which caused the bee to suddenly swerve, Fogel leaped back several feet and dashed for cover behind a trash can.
"They're attracted to sweat," Fogel said. "It makes them want to kill. Just try to keep as far away from it as you can."
After the bee seemingly disappeared, the humans—members of a species that has crossed an Ice Age land bridge from Asia to North America, domesticated the wolf, built the pyramids, and landed a manned vehicle on the surface of the moon—walked cautiously back to the picnic area.
"I think it's gone," personal trainer Marcus Weller, 32, said. "Thank God."
A few seconds later, the bee emerged from an overturned Coke can, prompting the humans to scream and retreat once more. They opted not to return to the area, abandoning several hundred dollars' worth of food and picnicking equipment. The brutalized parkgoers characterized the day as "totally ruined."
The bee, which was reportedly never more than vaguely aware of the presence of other living organisms besides the blooming plants it sought, eventually returned to its hive without incident.