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It appeared as if the man died while trying to duct tape a hole in the wall so the bees wouldn't get out: CopsA Miami man was found dead in a room of his house with his body surrounded by about 60,000 swarming bees, authorities said Sunday. Miami Police said the man, who wasn't identified by authorities, was on a ladder trying to duct tape a hole in the wall where he had seen bees, and when the bees flew out of the wall, he got startled, fell and died. The man had been renovating a house that has been...

Thousands of bees attacked three dogs, killing oneThousands of bees swarmed three dogs in Chula Vista Tuesday, killing one and leaving two in need of medical care. Carissa Musaraca describes what she saw to NBC 7 San Diego's Nicole Gonzales. Two dogs are clinging to life in Chula Vista after thousands of bees attacked them. A third dog died. A homeowner on Ocala Avenue says she went outside just before 2 p.m. after hearing her dogs making a noise. She says her dogs were covered in “thousands and thousands” of bees. “It looked like a tornado of bees. I couldn't...

VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 21, 2011 (Zenit.org).- What is the proper gift for a Pope on the Day for the Protection of Creation? According to the Italian agricultural group Coldiretti, it's about a half million bees.Italy's largest farming association gave Benedict XVI eight beehives containing more than 500,000 bees last Sunday.The beehives will be kept at the pontifical farm of Castel Gandolfo, where they will be used in pollination and the production of honey (some 617 pounds a year).Coldiretti explained that bees "play a vital role in the planet's ecosystem and their disappearance would have disastrous consequences for health and the...

Four people were hospitalized Thursday after a bee attack in Santa Ana, authorities said. The attack prompted the Santa Ana Fire Department to close a square block of an industrial area around the scene at 2610 S. Orange Ave. It was the second time recently that bees have forced a small-scale evacuation after they chased and attacked people near their hive. The latest episode unfolded shortly before noon when bystanders attempted to rescue a man in a wheelchair who was being stung repeatedly, said Santa Ana Fire Capt. Steve Snyder. It took several attempts to rescue the stricken man. ...didn’t...

BISBEE, AZ - Angry bees attacked several farm animals and even killed a 1,000 pound hog at a farm located off U.S. 80 in Bisbee in southern Arizona. KOLD-TV reports farmers were trying to move about a 200 pound hive Wednesday with an estimated 250,000 bees swarming around and stinging animals and farm workers.

Firefighters say residents used a torch-like device earlier Sunday to burn a bee nest in some stacked railroad ties located behind 36 Lenore Court in Walla Walla, but their plan backfired and burned a nearby garage. The residents didn't think the flame was that hot however the railroad ties actually sat smoldering for several hours, then later ignited. The fire quickly spread through some dry grass to a nearby garage, which then caught fire. Firefighters from Walla Walla County District 4, along with city firefighters, responded to the fire around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. No injuries were reported as a result...

LYNDEN, Wash. (AP) - A Washington state fire chief says a man dumped gasoline on a beehive in a tree in retaliation for a bee sting, then ignited the hive, causing an explosion heard throughout his suburban neighborhood just a few miles south of the Canadian border. Lynden chief Gary Baar tells the Bellingham Herald that the Sunday night fire caused a large "whoosh," singed the tree and killed the bees but no people were hurt. Baar says the man's friend had been stung earlier in the day. The fire chief says, "The correct way to do that is to...

LYNDEN, Wash. — A Washington state fire chief says a man dumped gasoline on a beehive in a tree in retaliation for a bee sting, then ignited the hive, causing an explosion heard throughout his suburban neighborhood just a few miles south of the Canadian border. Lynden chief Gary Baar tells the Bellingham Herald (http://bit.ly/pBBpg0) that the Sunday night fire caused a large “whoosh,” singed the tree and killed the bees but no people were hurt. Baar says the man’s friend had been stung earlier in the day.

A 95-year-old Redondo Beach man attacked by bees Wednesday afternoon was stung up to 600 times. The man was treated at a hospital and released. Authorities said they could not confirm whether the bees are Africanized bees, but said it is likely. The bees were agitated by a fumigator that was trying to exterminate the hive in an apartment roof nearby, police said. The man was walking in the 1700 block of Ruxton Lane when he was attacked. Firefighters responding to the scene also were attacked by the bees, but because they were wearing protective gear, the firefighters were not...

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities. And the flow of Chinese honey continues despite assurances from the Food and Drug Administration and other federal officials that the hundreds of millions of pounds reaching store shelves were authentic and safe following the widespread arrests and convictions of...

A swarm of bees in a busy section of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has made local residents and business owners nervous. One expert says they have nothing to fear, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. "Leave them alone and give them a wide berth," Michael Cantor of the South Florida Bee Nursery advised. After a local resident sent an e-mail to the city Thursday, with pictures of swarming bees, the Fort Lauderdale forester joined firefighters and police officers on a bee hunt. They found a hive in the space between outside and inside walls in a chiropractor's office. The property owner must...

It was an “un-BEE-lievable” site on Highway 20 when a semi-truck carrying more than 14-million bees ran off the road and spilled its entire load Sunday. The honeybees were on their way to North Dakota from Bakersfield, California, when the semi-truck left the side of the road just north of Last Chance in Island Park. The Fremont County Sheriff's Office says they began to receive numerous 911 calls about the accident around 4:30 Sunday afternoon. Authorities also say everyone on the scene suffered multiple bee stings while assisting with the accident. The fire department had to spray fire foam on...

The Flatiron District was hit with two bee swarms just half a block apart on Tuesday. A giant group of honeybees gathered on the Perfume Warehouse awning early Tuesday morning at 22 W. 30th St., followed by a smaller swarm hours later just around the corner on a planter in front of the BeadKraft bead store on Broadway. Andrew Cote, of the New York City Beekeepers Association, rescued the first swarm of roughly 15,000 bees, weighing 4 pounds, Tuesday. Cote said he got a call to his group's "swarm hotline" at 1:30 a.m. He said it's likely that the second...

FRESNO, Calif. -- A California proposal to tax beekeepers to pay for research on bees' health has stirred up a swarm, even though all agree more study is needed amid a widespread die-off. The proposal to set up a California Apiary Research Commission with the power to tax comes as bees nationwide are perishing in great numbers from colony collapse disorder and other health problems. California is the nation's main producer of fruits and vegetables, and bees are essential pollinators of about a third of the United States' food supply. Beekeepers already feel California is not friendly to the industry,...

Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees. These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying – or being killed – at a disturbing pace. The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high in real terms (not just nominal) and grain shortages trigger revolutions in the Middle East, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee...

Beepods are handsome, made-in-Wisconsin wooden beehives designed for optimum bee comfort and user-friendliness. The cost? Under $500. Now show me the honey ... Along with backyard chicken-keeping, urban beekeeping is another exercise in countrified self-sufficiency that’s really picked up steam over the past couple of years and been embraced by city dwellers … the latest “urban agricultural must-have,” as the New York Times put it back in 2009. The whole bees-in-the-city movement reached an unofficial climax back in March when the ban on residential beekeeping was lifted in New York City (although NYC beekeepers had been practicing and celebrating it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide. They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss. We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," the researchers reported in the...

The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists. The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that...

“That is one pretty darn big nest,” said Ken Crayton, a retiree from Rochester, N.Y., showing it off in Thursday morning’s drizzle. “Oh, my goodness,” said Joan Hayes, the homeowners association vice president, peering at the big hive. “Never seen anything like it,” her husband Bill said. The Craytons had just returned last week from spending two months in Anderson, S.C., and invited their son and daughter-in-law for dinner. “We never noticed anything,” Crayton said. “But our son took their Jack Russell outside for a walk and said, ‘Holy jeepers! Look at the size of that nest up there!’ That’s...

Bees can solve complex mathematical problems which keep computers busy for days, research has shown. The insects learn to fly the shortest route between flowers discovered in random order, effectively solving the "travelling salesman problem" , said scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London. The conundrum involves finding the shortest route that allows a travelling salesman to call at all the locations he has to visit. Computers solve the problem by comparing the length of all possible routes and choosing the one that is shortest. Bees manage to reach the same solution using a brain the size of a grass...

DENVER — It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?

We think we saw this on Bee Movie. Did one of the bees buzz like Jerry Seinfeld?That hum a grounds crew heard at Hollywood-Fort Lauderdale International Airport wasn't the usual sound coming from a jet engine. It was thousands of bees that decided the jet would make a good spot to nest. The privately owned Falcon Jet had to be sprayed down by a Broward Sheriff's Office Fire Rescue truck. The bees totally covered the left wing of the plane. No word if BSO or the Red Cross is going to help the bees find a new home, but our...

A 100-pound beehive had some Cape Coral neighbors Monday. The incredible hive was found along Palm Tree Boulevard, but experts say it's no longer a safety concern. Cape homeowner Chuck Koller says he learned the hard he should have stayed away from the hive. "It was a big one," he said said. "I just crossed a couple of trees down from where it was and it still came after me and got me on the arm here." He called the City of Cape Coral, who then called Bee Trapper Keith Councell to take care of the gigantic hive. "This is...

A nine-year-old boy didn't know he was allergic to bees, but his 18-week-old dog could sense this. When the boy was attacked by a swarm of bees, it was the pup that took charge and saved the boy from a possible severe reaction. Richie didn't know he was allergic to bees until he was stung on his feet while outside playing with his puppy Pinky. The pup seemed to have a sixth sense and knew that Richie not only had an allergy, but he also had a blood condition that didn't allow his blood to clot properly. Both these issues...

Ron Hoskins has found a breed of the insect that protects itself against the parasite blamed for the alarming fall in numbers. The 79-year-old made the discovery after realising that one of his hives had far fewer deaths from the varroa mite than others. He found that the insects in that hive 'groomed' each other to get rid of the mites before they had the chance to do any harm. Now he is attempting to spread his mite-resistant breed of bees by cross-breeding them with queens from other hives. Decline: The UK's bee population had dropped by 60 per cent...

Sweet little hobby Create a buzz, and help distressed bees, with your own hive JANET CARSON SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE While some people fear bees and many worry about getting stung, these little insects more than redeem themselves as the primary pollinators of plants worldwide. Today is National Honeybee Appreciation Day — well deserved because it’s estimated that more than 80 percent of flowering plants and almost a third of human food crops need bees as pollinators. Reports have been claiming the loss of bee populations is due to mites, pesticides and human activities. Many species of pollinators, including bees,...

For the first time, a tree trimmer stung about 500 times by Africanized killer bees on Saturday described the attack. He was working on a tree in the front yard of a home in Safety Harbor when he cut through a massive hive. "This giant swarm just came directly at me. It's like they knew who did it," Ralph St. Peter explained. Photo Gallery: Man stung 500 times by Africanized bees St. Peter's hands and face are still swollen. From head to toe, he's covered in bee stings. "Fireants. It would be the same as fireants," St. Peter said, also...

The Meadowlands is home to 78 species of bees, including two native to Europe and North Africa never before seen in North America, according to a recent study. The bee survey is part of a larger effort by the Meadowlands Commission to document animal and plant species and better understand how changes to the environment are affecting the region's biodiversity. "I was amazed by the amount of bee species found. I was thinking 12, maybe 13 species," said Francisco J. Artigas, executive director of the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute. Prompted in 2007 by the collapse of honeybee colonies, the institute...

Check out this video of two guys attempting to break into a store by throwing bricks the window that is probably plexiglas. Besides having the brick bounce off and hit one of the guys, which in and of itself is funny, they stir up a hornets nest and get chased away without ever breaking in.

OK, I have a bee trifecta for you here. To begin with, I have a start with I have a stupid criminal video for you to enjoy.  What you will see is a very short video clip of two would be criminals wanting to break into a business. What the surveillance video shows is that they obviously pissed off a hive of bees. That is the swarm of bugs you see flying around the camera. The second video is a musical interlude called "The Flight of the Bumblebee" from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Tale of the Tsar Saltan.  It...

What's up with President Obama and his bizarre ability to attract insects like flies, bees and rodents? The latest was his press conference yesterday, when a fly landed just above his mouth. Previously, the president had to swat a fly away during an interview, and a similar instance occurred during a planned photo op in Iowa. Then he was swarmed by bees, and even had a rodent come running towards him during a presser in the Rose Garden. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/show/2010-06-23/

It is said that elephants are afraid of mice, but scientists have discovered what elephants are really afraid of: bees. It turns out that the enormous mammals sound an alarm when they encounter bees, and that knowledge could help save African farmers' crops from elephants -- and could save elephants, too. Elephants and humans don't always live well together, particularly in African countries including Kenya. A single hungry elephant can wipe out a family's crops overnight. During the harvest season, farmers will huddle by fires all night, and when an elephant comes near, they will jump up with flaming sticks...

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for a crackdown on a unique brand of laundering. Not money or drug laundering, but honey. Schumer, D-N.Y., announced yesterday that his office will press Immigrations and Custom Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Food and Drug Administration to more stringently regulate mislabeled honey brought into the country and the state by Chinese exporters. Almost 10 years ago, Chinese honey became the subject of special taxes when it was found that Chinese honey traders were engaging in what Schumer called “predatory trade practices.” Schumer said, since then, those traders have gone to extraordinary...

Ancient Biblical beehives have been discovered in the northern Israeli site of Tel Rehov, in the Jordan Valley. Archaeologists found the 3,000-year-old remains of honeybees – including workers, drones, pupae and larvae – inside some 30 clay cylinders, according to a report published in the June 8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A high-resolution microscope was used to study the bodies of the small insects. The scientists said they found that their legs and wings appeared to indicate they more closely resemble the bees found in modern-day Turkey than those of present-day Israel. The bee...

CASTLE Market was closed yesterday afternoon when an estimated 30,000 swarming bees descended on Sheffield city centre. Two clouds of honey bees appeared at Waingate just after midday, swarming onto the roof of Shoe Zone and around a hanging basket on the corner with Castle Street. Shoe Zone worker Susan Crossland said: "A big cloud of bees suddenly appeared outside the shop. There were thousands and thousands of them. They just suddenly arrived." Her colleague Stacey Bingham called Sheffield Council's environmental health officers, who contacted bee keepers Jez Daughtry and George Windsor. Police officers cordoned off Waingate and closed the...

LAKEVILLE, Minn. - A second person has died in a four-vehicle crash on Interstate 35 in Lakeville that released a swarm of bees from a semi. Two semi trucks, including one carrying millions of bees, and two cars collided on Interstate 35 late Monday morning . The driver of one of the cars died at the scene. The driver of the other car was airlifted to a hospital and died Monday evening. The drivers killed in the crash have been identified as 24-year-old Kari Rasmussen of St. Anthony, Minn. and 50-year-old Pamela Brinkhaus of Elko, Minn. Several first responders were...

A swarm of "thousands of bees" gathered outside the White House this morning. The small army of insects hovered as Obama tried to leave the White House to play basketball at Fort McNair, according to a pool report. By the time the president returned at noon, the bees were apparently nowhere in sight.

A swarm of "thousands of bees" gathered outside the White House this morning. The small army of insects hovered as Obama tried to leave the White House to play basketball at Fort McNair, according to a pool report.

What is devastating the world's honeybees? In what appears to be a honeybee mystery of Armageddon proportions that has baffled scientists and beekeepers, more than one-third of the nation's bee population is mysteriously disappearing – and researchers warn the unexplained phenomenon threatens one-third of the American diet.

HFD Rescues Hiker Attacked by Swarm of Bees (only a link, per FR rules)

Beware of that beehive tucked in the eaves. Africanized bees—the strain commonly referred to as “killer bees”—have finally infiltrated SLO County, and their behavior is indeed potentially dangerous. The aggressive strain has relentlessly spread north since 1956, when it was first noticed in Brazil, arriving in Texas during the ‘90s, then Arizona, and now in California. Santa Barbara is battling them, but moving at about 30 miles a year, they have not yet been reported in Paso Robles. Scott Jeffreys, a lecturer in the Horticulture and Crop Sciences Department at Cal Poly who teaches bee keeping, emphasized, “They arrive and...

Infiniti parked on neighborhood street abuzz with swarm It looks like a scene out of a B-rate movie. Thousands of bees attached to something other than a hive looking hungry and ready to devour anything in their path. It wasn't exactly an "Attack of the Killer Bees" situation but the oddity of nature in the South Bay Friday was enough to make people steer clear of a car discovered with a swarm attached. A viewer alerted us to the bee-zarre scene at the corner of 5th and E. Empire streets, where a white Infiniti was discovered with thousands of the...

The decline in the US bee population, first observed in 2006, is continuing, a phenomenon that still baffles researchers and beekeepers. Data from the US Department of Agriculture show a 29 percent drop in beehives in 2009, following a 36 percent decline in 2008 and a 32 percent fall in 2007. This affects not only honey production but around 15 billion dollars worth of crops that depend on bees for pollination. Scientists call the phenomenon "colony collapse disorder" that has led to the disappearance of millions of adult bees and beehives and occurred elsewhere in the world including in Europe....

NEW DELHI – The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers and cellphones can pose a threat to honey bees, a study published in India has concluded. An experiment conducted in the southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused by towers installed across the state by cellphone companies to increase their network. The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the "navigational skills" of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said Dr. Sainuddin Pattazhy, who conducted the study, the Press Trust of India...

A couple years back, I was visiting a local gardener who has a very green thumb. Now he had dozens of wooden blocks and cans around, so I asked him, and he said they were Mason bees, and he just handed me a can! So I took it home and hung it on a nail on my porch. The can looks like this, although this is just a sample: Well, last March, towards the end of the month, I noticed a bee coming out! Didn't take very long before I had bees up my butt (so to speak!) What they...

The secret of honey bees' success has been discovered living deep inside their hives - a special type of bee which acts like a living radiator, warming the nest and controlling the colony's complex social structure. The "heater bees" have been found to play a crucial, and previously unappreciated, role in the survival of honey bee colonies. Using new technology that allows sceintists to see the temperature inside the bee hives, researchers have been able to see how heater bees use their own bodies to provide a unique form of central heating within a hive. They have found that these...

PB HAMIYAH – Life can be hard in Khidr, a small village in an area once dubbed "the Triangle of Death" by the American media, as financial help can be slow in making its way to such a rural area. In an effort to establish money-making alternatives for the residents there, Soldiers of "B" Company, 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment recently visited the village to provide much-needed contracts that will help 70 widows and farmers establish turkey farms, bee keeping houses and irrigation wells. As the applicants signed their names to the contracts, Staff Sgt. Jon Kirkendall, a squad leader...

Find out why bees never crash land, and how their technique could help engineers to design new aircraft.Whether landing on a picnic table, underneath a flower petal, or on a wall of a hive, bees always manage to touch down without crashing or tumbling. Now, for the first time, scientists have figured out how these insects maneuver themselves onto all sorts of surfaces, from right side up to upside-down. The bees' technique, which depends mostly on eyesight, may help engineers design a new generation of automated aircraft that would be undetectable to radar or sonar systems and would make...

A TEENAGER died and more than 20 people were injured when swarms of bees escaped from their hives after the van transporting them crashed into a truck and overturned on a motorway near the resort of Marmaris, in southern Turkey. Rescue workers, police, medics and beekeepers tried for more than an hour to release two people trapped inside the vehicle, their faces carpeted with angry bees. One of the pair, aged 18, died in hospital from the combined effect of injuries sustained in the crash and multiple bee stings. Three others were in intensive care in hospital. About 20 people...

First Lady Michelle Obama settled on giving some china to the spouses. Here's how the White House describes the china: A one-of-a-kind porcelain tea set, White House honey and a honey vase designed exclusively for the occasion of the Pittsburgh Summit 2009. The platinum and purple porcelain design of the teacups is classic and contemporary, and inspired by the gold and purple White House china that President and Mrs. Lincoln used in 1861. The use of platinum on the saucer symbolizes Pittsburgh’s steel industry roots; the use of purple is the color of the state flower of Illinois, the purple...