Posted on 04/12/2008 11:46:31 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A man in Florida died after being stung more than 100 times by bees that officials think were Africanized honey bees.
The man had a fatal reaction to the bee stings, medical officials said.
Local 6 reported that it will likely be reported as the first death in Florida caused by the aggressive bees.
The victim's name wasn't released.
Africanized bee stings are no more potent than an ordinary bee stings, but the bees are far more aggressive and attack in swarms. Experts say they have been in Florida since 2002, and there have been a few reports about swarms of the bees attacking people.
Officials at the Florida Department of Agriculture said the man was stung April 9 in rural northwestern Okeechobee County as he was trying to dismantle a trailer.
Witnesses told officials that the man knew there was a nest of bees on the trailer.
The bee colony was later destroyed by state officials.
Bee experts say the swarms don't fly around seeking to attack people. They do react aggressively, however, when disturbed by people or animals, such as when someone pokes at their nest.
Agriculture officials said people should stay away from bee nests and shouldn't try to remove nests themselves. If they're chased by a swarm of bees, people should run until they can get inside.
Officials also said that most wasp and hornet sprays shouldn't be used on bee nests. While they can kill the bees, they also cause the release of a pheromone that stimulates the rest of the colony to attack.
they never fail to race-bait, those media dogs, do they?
I’ve forwarded this post over to the Justice Brothers ( Sharpton and Jackson ) they will be responding just as soon as they can reach a microphone with a camera attached.
And my wife wants to move to FL...........
Just run into the nearest water if the bees attack.
Ah, that clears up some misconceptions I had. I thought that you should try to be in close proximity, and you should remove the nest yourself.
If they're chased by a swarm of bees, people should run until they can get inside.
Again, I always thought you should stand your ground and keep swatting at them.
Yeah, I suppose it's better to get eaten by alligators than stung by bees!
Another time when multiculturalism didn’t work.
Nice fella the inspector... originally from Tennesee... and of course my perfectionist Hungarian immigrant father in law has the most well maintained hives he's ever seen.
Anyway, Florida has an ogoing management plan to limit the breeding of the "killer bees" by encouraging the proliferation of domesticated bees. We went on and on about it while he did the inspection. Apparently the whole system is currently balanced on a knife edge so they are encouraging as many people as they can to start raising them.
Very interesting to hear about.
But since they’ve been here a while, shouldn’t they be “African-Americanized honey bees”?
before you leap!
Then you will love to learn about fire ants, coral snakes, gators, cottonmouths ... all the lovely fauna we get to enjoy down here.
That’s an Africanized bee? No wonder this feller died.
Bad advice. Killer bees will hover over you until you have to come up for air. The only defense is go get inside something that will put a closed door between you and the bees.
When I was a teenager, I once fell into a yellow-jacket nest and was stung 33 times. It HURT!
“I never would have dreamed it would turn out to be the bees! They’ve always been our friends!”
-Michael Cain’s character from the very Bad movie “The Swarm”. A real B flick.
I was mowing hay last year and hit a bumblebee nest,they
came up out of the ground looking like a black cloud.Those suckers kept hitting me time after time.
I ended up with 18 stings,spent the night at VA.
Scary thing to be attacked by a big nest of any bees.
I can`t imagine being stung 100 times,poor devil
LOL, I remember “killer bees”!
That was one of the hoaxes between the “global cooling” and “global warming” hoaxes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.